Category: Gameplay

Post have been light because … well, because there’s (a) not been a lot of news from the Dev front, and (b) my playing has been on the light side.

There has been some, though.

Kitsune-chan is a new alt on [lost track of which server].  She’s mean to be a fox spirit, and so is an Illusion/Rad Controller, complete with fox ears, feral fore-arms, t-shirt, jeans, and cowboy boots.  She’s actually a lot of fun, and I’m remembering why I enjoyed running Psi-clone so much.  She’s teamed up with Margie’s Ex-Terra, a Spines Scrapper.

I’ve also been playing a lot with Old Saucy Jack, my Ripper-based BS/Regen Scrapper, complete with long trench coat, bow tie, top had, and mutton chops.  He’s fun to play, and he’s actually been invited into a rather enjoyable SG — “Mid-Life Crisis,” touted as a group of 30s-40s (I still qualify) players.  I was impressed (before I actually joined) by the relative maturity of play (one of the few FrostFires I’ve been on where there wasn’t someone running ahead drawing multi-group aggro), and it’s been rather pleasant having that conversational fun.  Plus, as a solo alt, it’s a low-stress play time (vs. when I play with Margie which, while enjoyable because she is an excellent player, has me actually worried about how things are going with her much more than when I’m in a PUG).

So, anyway, I am playing a bit.  Just not a lot startling to say outside of comments on recent posts.

I was running a random solo alt this evenimg — Miss Crackle, a Lvl 11 Elec/Energy Blaster — after karate.  There’s something marvelously mindless and non-committal and unstressful about just playing alts and joining PUGs … it doesn’t “matter,” and therefore one can just relax and take things as they come.

I’d about given up on anyone answering the LFT, and was headed to Steel to run the University stuff, when I got a tell inviting me to a team, and picked it up. And had one of those nice experiences that actually makes up for the 60% of PUGs that are mediocre and the 35% that are just plain wrong.   The team — two blasters, two scrappers, two defenders — just clicked, and we rolled through various Hollows missions, culminating in running Frostfire.  And it was all skittles and beer and occasional OMG we’re all going to die! and successes galore, until …

Freaking “City of Heroes has encountered a problem, so sorry … Verifying Files …” just two mobs away from the FF room

Ah, well.  Still fun.

The reality of the Sewer Missions in Atlas is that once the team has gone in 4-5 encounters (say past the side dead-end tunnel full of Vahz), someone joining from the front door is not going to make it unless they have some invisibility power, healing power, or travel power.  That being said …

1. Once you join a Sewer Team, it’s incumbent upon you to make your way to the sewers with all deliberate speed.  People are going to wait for you, and the longer you hold them up, the more impolite you are being.  Joining the team is not the time to hit Wentworths, hit Miss Liberty, hit the store, hit Azuria, and go order pizza.
2. It’s polite to wait for a decent length of time for the last person to make it in the door before hallooing off after bad guys.  Folks joined expecting to be part of the team.  Be a team mate toward them.
3. It’s polite to head back toward the door if you’re only in a few encounters and someone dies or joins the team new.  It’s both polite and wise to do so when it’s 3-4 members of the team heading back from the hospital.
4. It’s impolite to insist that folks head back to the door for you when they’re a dozen-plus encounters in.  Not only is it time-consuming, but they’ve probably far outleveled the greens/blues at the entrance and so would lose XP-over-time.
5. It’s very impolite to act snarky when folks won’t come back for you in a case like #4.  It’s even more impolite to continue to rag on the team leader by private tells after quitting the team in a huff.  It’s even more polite to do so after the team leader offers an apology.

Thus endeth the lesson.

Finished up the Level 35 missions in the Rikti War Zone last night with Rita and Runt. Need to wait a few levels to start up the Level 40 missions.

Went on, coincidentally, to some Rikti content elsewhere (the Organ Grinders arc).  I’m of mixed feelings over the new Rikti graphics.  I think it’s perfectly legit that the new invading forces have the cool new armor, weapons, etc.  But the Rikti who’ve been stuck here on Earth since the first invasion — I wish they’d been allowed to keep their “first generation” weapons and threadbare look.  Either that, or update the mission text to give some clues that the New Rikti and Old Rikti have been intermingline.

(Hmmmm … for that matter, as the Omega Clearance stuff that comes at the end of the Organ Grinders arc is now actually revealed in passing in the first Rikti War Zone set of missions — has that been updated, too?  Or are we supposed to look surprised?)

Ran around with Rita and Runt, beating up Rikti.  Fun times.  Nice content.  Margie’s well familiar with the stuff from her beta testing, but I enjoyed it.  There were four RWZ instances on Victory — but, interestingly, no Rikti invasion raids while we were on.

RWZ requires Level 35+, which means for us:

1. Rita and Runt (at 36)
2. Torchy and Hildy (at 49 – we should really do their ding mission some time)
3. Psi-clone and Amorpha (at 50)

Solo, I have Lynn at 34, pretty close to 35.  We also have P-siren and Velvet at 32, but I don’t see playing them any time soon, unless teaming were involved.

So, several geological ages ago, I built Al McGordo, a Rad/Rad Offender.  He was a great concept (radioactive cowboy from New Mexico, of course), and I really loved the whole eye-beams thang, etc.

Never did much with him — just never quite clicked.

Then, this evening, Doyce and Kate were looking for someone to help start up the Posi TF, and I asked Margie, “Well, do they want any help?”

Natch, all we had in-level-range (10-15) was Al (at 10) and Margie’s squid, Lunulata, at 11.  Running with Hang Time at 12 and DeepFreeze Deputante at 14.

Which, given the front-loading “THOU SHALLT NOT FARM!” of Posi meant we were going up against All Purple, All the Time.

We slogged through the first mish (many Purple Vahz — thank heavens for the Holiday Spirit I still had), then into the second mish (“Demons, Mr. Rico!  Zillions of ’em!”), where we decided that Debt was not a good way of life for the entire frelling party, and we broke up the TF.

A bit later, as Margie and I were running through the University Invention Tutorial, Doyce pinged us to see if we wanted to actually hit things we could actually hit.

So we did a mish in Kings Row, then (as I opined that I’d loooooove a travel power, even a temp one) the KR Safeguard mish – which, with a bit of fumbling around, we actually succeeded at, more-or-less (foiled the bank robbery, did one side mish successfully, timed out on the second).

And, by end-of-evening, both of us had levelled, and I, at least, was beginning to get the hang of the whole Offender thing.

Hmmm.  Which, I guess, means it’s time to put Al back into the deep freeze for another year.  🙂

Played a bit with Mr Ravenous and Charity at Home last night for the first time in yikes.  I’d forgotten how much fun the Brutish running-between-melees schtick was, and Margie did her usual bang-up job of heals and resist debuffs.  Hilarity and bloodshed ensued.

Doyce sent out an invite across the [Monday Munchies] mail list to see if we could hop on and get some of the Hostess Heroes up to the Rikti invasion zone level 35 minimum in time for I10 to hit.  Ginger Snap and Bear Claws are at 30, I think; Ho Ho and Princess Peep are 28.

Got on late (just as I was returning from karate, in fact), but still had a fun time.  Managed to ding Ho Ho to 29 (Peep tends to get chewed on more).  Despite the Red Cap Mission from Hell, it was still enjoyable, and a blaster / scrapper / tank / defender team is, by nature, pretty well balanced.

Gotta do that some more some time.

Ran the Brickstown Bank safeguard mish last night. No simple getaway van for the Nemesis bank robbers — hell, no, they’ve got this beautiful boring machine.  Glee!

Expect more after I10.  Quoth Statesman:

 I’ll let you into a little secret…

Positron is very focused on advancing the storyline…he really championed the idea of the “second invasion.” I think you’ll find that future updates will touch more upon the game’s background than previous…

Very cool.  I chatted with someone in the closed beta, and, without going into any NDAed details, I10 looks very keen.

So I’ve been missing big team activities.  I do a little soloing these days, duoing with Margie, and attempted PUGs with various alts around the servers, but a scheduled “Let’s get together with some good players and put on a show” kind of thing just hasn’t been happening for some time (prolly since the Hostess Heroes got put back on the shelf).

So … given that this is 2xXP weekend coming up Friday … anyone interested in a get-together?  Given possible server/space/level issues, Margie’s suggestion would be a “How fast can we get a group from 1 to 10?” startup on some server with space on it.  Not requiring or committing to anything beyond this weekend, just a chance to get together with some friends, some known quantities, some good players, and have some kick-ass high-reward fun.

It would be nice to run a team through the Sewers (or the Hollows) (or through the Hollows after doing the Kings Row safeguard mish, so we all have a temp travel power) that was a real team, not Joe “BRB ORDERING PIZZA” and Fred “GOIN TO LVL” and Eddie “LOOK I CAN FALL DOWN AND ALMOST DIE!” and Suzy “LEEERRROOOOOYYYYY!”

All commenters welcome.  Any takers?  Any particular timeframe (Friday night, Saturday afternoon, Saturday night, Sunday afternoon, Sunday night)?

<blockquote>Start: Friday, June 15th at 8:59am PST / 11:59am EST
Finish: Sunday, June 17th, 8:59pm PST / 11:59pm EST</blockquote>

That is, by the bye, Fathers Day weekend.

Need to ponder who, if anyone, I want to have us plow through with.  Might do our MM duo, just to access the later powers faster.

A little of this, a little of that.

Most of the play time with Margie (when she wasn’t lying on the couch trying to recover from a nasty head cold) was with Torchy and Hildy, who are now at 49.8 and on a roll.  Those big Portal Corp outdoor maps are, if you clear them, worth pretty close to a full pip at Unyielding at 49.

I did do some good bits on Friday night with Lady Zebra, rolling a whole series of Faultline content until we ran into one mish that TPKed us three times in a row.  Mercifully, I had other things I had to run off and do.  Debt is my friend.

The rest of the time I was goofing off with some low-level types — a bit more with Miss Crackle, created The Unexpected Ally (a huge demonic fire tank who draws the strangest looks …) and got him up to 7, and a little of this/that with other sundry characters.

I have four or five lowbies that have gotten into the 6-7 range.  That’s a tough transition, as you go from the pretty-regular “Sewer Mish 2-7 PST” environment to casting about the Hollows or Kings for pretty much anything.  That’s one of the PUG Player problems, of course — the higher you go, the tougher to find folks to team with.

When we got on as Torchy and Hildy on Sunday, Margie saw she had a police mission — “Stop BADGUY_NAME and his men!”

We entered, chortling about the Dreaded BADGUY_NAME. 

First corridor.  Nothing.

First floor.  Nothing.

Entire map.  Nothing.  Deserted.  Either everyone was hiding behind those unopenable doors, or BADGUY_NAME had given us the slip.  Though we did get the Mission Over and credit once I set foot in the final room.

(Yes, we bugged it.)

As things presently stand in the game, the new Invention system is the most “fun” (and profit) for those folks who are starting off with Gobs of Cash, er, Influence (explain to me how the concept of “Influence” translates into Auction Houses again?). 

One writer to the boards commented:

I’m puzzled how the whole business is being considered a good, functioning thing. How are players at lower level supposed to participate when everything on the market is selling for millions of influence (sometimes HUNDREDS of millions)? If I combined the total influence earned by all my characters since I began playing, I wouldn’t have that much.

Yes, I could post stuff and earn millions in a moment, but that seems broken in itself. Should a L1 character have millions of influence? Further, a casual player is going to be severely handicapped even GETTING the drops. In other words, the hardcore and the rich will get rich. The casual and the new will languish in mediocrity.

Castle answered, unhelpfully, that it’s easy to play that game — if you win the lotto.

Heh, going to chime in on this one just for a bit of reference on how quickly you can acquire influence.

I was lucky on one of my play characters to get the burned wings recipe within the first 36 hours of the game going live. I scraped up as much influence as I had which was roughly 65 k and put that item up for sale for the max that I could which was 18mil.

It sold instantly… I be rich, I do be rich indeed. Not really compared to a lot of folks out there willing to pay higher prices for items so they don’t have to be bothered getting the drops.

This is a blind auction system so honestly just because you see an item sell for a high price doesn’t mean that same item isn’t also listed for 200 influence.

With a market like this there are always ways to make a bit of influence if you are clever you will find a way.

Which is all fine and well, if you want to take the time to play the market the market that way.  In a sense it feels a lot like those folks who spend a lot of time online at stock sites — they claim to be able to make big money with a bit of cleverness and attention, but if you can’t or won’t invest that time (so to speak), it’s not an option open to you.  Similarly, it seems to me that you can make a fair amount of money simply actioning the rare and unusual recipes and salvage you pick up at Wentworths, and simply selling the rest — which is not what the system is intended to do, but which is a lot more simple and straightforward than figuring out how to get the four ingredients for a recipe to give you a perpetual DO on a particular power, and maybe let you build additional sets that will add other little power bits.

Margie’s comment, as I chatted with her about this, is that this is all a part of reducing the Influence excess for the long-time Level 50s who have kept playing their characters and getting filthy rich.  Those are the people you hear on Broadcast chortling about how they just bought a Wings recipe for 16MM Influence.

In theory, if that’s so, then once they’ve spent all their loose change (or passed it onto their lower friends and alts to spend), then prices should go down.  Unlike a “real” economy, the demand is consistent but the supply is inexhaustible.  That should mean things reaching a more reasonable equilibrium in a few weeks … assuming anyone’s still doing anything with IOs by then.

Inventions and Recipes and Salvage …

… so not my bag, baby.

So we went through the tutorial with Rita and Runt last night.  And then we hopped over to the convenient Wentworths …

… and …

… and …

… I felt like I needed a freaking college course to find what I wanted.  The very worst aspects of the insane “We’re not going to call a Science SO for Accuracy an ‘Accuracy SO’ but a ‘Boron Accelerator Module SO’ system have been brought over and magnified a hundredfold the Invention system.  Eleventy-zillion little bits of Invention Salvage (not to be confused with, but convertable to, Base Salvage), which can be put up for bid (maybe, and you can perhaps find the price of what it’s going for if you spend fifteen minutes rooting through the Wentworths interface) or, maybe, sold to contacts.  I think. 

And if you want to do something with this, then maybe you’ve found a recipe for a device of some sort.  Or maybe you bought one at Wentworths, or something like that (if you are fabulously wealthy — the recipe for Dragon Wings is going for 6-25 million influence).  And perhaps you have the salvage you need.  And maybe, just maybe, you have the influence (influence?) you need.

At which point you can build something that’s pretty cool.  But the whole process is sort of like balancing your checkbook, in spades.

Those who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like.  The rest of us will shun it like the freaking plague.  My prediction is that the Unis and Wentworths will be, within a few weeks, only slightly more populated than the Arenas.

What I want, if we’re going to have something like this, is to be able to walk into the Wentworths, dump what I have in front of the man, have him say, “Oh, you can exchange this for this, this, or this,” and be done with it.  Anything more than that is …

… well, hell, tell me how this resembles any comic book you’ve ever heard of?

Yeesh.

<small>And, yes, I realize that if I really applied myself, and really tried it out, I could learn how to do all of this like a second nature.  But I don’t want to, and don’t see why I should.  As far as I can tell, the only real advantage to the game is that it slows down people going through content while they dick around with salvage and recipes and inventions.</small>

<small>And, yes, I realize I don’t actually have to do it.  And I may very well end up just turning off the freaking “You got Salvage” and “Salvage is Full” messages and completely ignore it for the rest of my stay on CoX.  Yeesh.</small>