Category: Resources & Rules

Global Handle Renaming

Quoth CuppaJo:

It’s not all bad news however, a Global Handle Rename will be granted to all players this morning shortly after all servers come up to help compensate for recent global chat issues.

I don’t have any particular desire to redo my “Three-Star Dave” handle (long as it is), but it’s nice to know that I could if I wanted to.

And some … mixed … UPDATES:

Global Chat should be fixed as of this morning.

You will also get a global handle change with this morning’s maintenance AFTER all the servers are up. To use this change just use the command /changehandle <user name> – WARNING: You only get one chance to change this name – check your spelling!!! GMs will NOT grant you another one if you make a mistake.

and

The global chat server will remain down while an issue is being investigated.

We are also receiving reports that some have lost rename token – we’re looking into this.

Costuming

More on the Fifth Costume Slot, which appears to be tied into this year’s Halloween event. Fun.

Regarding costumes and my main toons these days:

Torchielle: She’s cut her hair recently, but her main costume is pretty stable (scaled hide boots and gloves, and, of course, the cape being relatively recent, plus a faint smoky aura about her hands). If I were doing more RP with her, I’d have some interesting developments, but that’s not happening any time soon. She actually only uses two of her three slots already. I’m not altogether happy with her “civvies” — the women’s shirt choices are pretty cruddy. We’ll
see.

Ho Ho: I’ve been jonesing to do something with her outfit, but haven’t decided what. Her main costume still fits the iconic role, and I never liked her Golden Age variation. Need to think about this.

Lynn Calodo: I keep coming back to the Goth Girl in a Black T-Shirt look for her. Her cool-spiffy outfit just isn’t doing it for me. Don’t need more slots, need more inspiration. Well, and more playtime, too.

Eliza Dee: Too low to be getting more costume slots. I did redo her outfit a bit when I picked her back up for soloing again some weeks back — trading the sneakers (which I’d mistaken for being small boots) for folded boots. When she finally gets costume slots available — not sure what I’m going to do with her.

Psi-clone: Recently upgraded his adventurers outfit to have one of the spiffy buttoned jackets and (overly-glossy) leather pants. He does use all four of his slots (to the extent he goes out these days), and I don’t know what I’d do with a fifth.

So, ultimately, a fifth slot isn’t all that exciting.

Now, once they get trenchcoats available …

Did have another amusing costume thing recently. Playing with the idea of another controller/scrapper combo with Margie, and decided I’d do an ice/kin controller. We were also chuckling over a D&D advert in a comic book I was reading about how “At least you’ll know for sure that the hot elf chick is played by a dude.” So I decided I needed to have a character named Hot Elf Chick.

(Which seems oxymoronic with an ice controller, but I digress.)

So I came up with what I though was a fun costume, very sharp-looking, and, yes, pretty damned hot to my eyes.

Margie, sight unseen, predicted, “So, of course, Hot Elf Chick has a full costume from the neck down, no skin showing.”

Um … well, yeah. Margie knows me too well. So I created another version with an Eden top and a Bikini bottom and bare feet. But I didn’t think she was any sexier.

Issue 8 – to Protect and Serve

I haven’t plowed through it yet, and I hope there’s a transcript of it somewhere, but this thread includes a bunch of comments from Positron about Issue 8 as recorded on a WOOT Radio interview. Among the “GLEE!” moments:

  1. Travel power customization costume bits — including jet packs and wings (!) that flap when you fly (!!).
  2. Nictus and “Evil Peacebringers” coming to CoV.
  3. Faultline will (finally) get rebuilt.
  4. The pay boxed “expansion set” has been scrapped — the stuff will be rolled into the free updates.
  5. The Fifth Column is returning … next year.
  6. Invention system is coming … next year.
  7. Power customizations … probably not coming. Bummer.
  8. Rent will be based on plot size.
  9. Veteran (account longevity) reward badges coming each 3 months.
  10. SG sizes changing to 75 accounts, not toons.
  11. Two new accolades coming, waiting on powers to be built.
  12. Some villain powersets will come to CoH.
  13. Server transfer and “switching sides” very much still on the table, already partially built, but no schedule.
  14. Flashback (“Back when I was 20th level and hadn’t yet done this content …”) on the table.
  15. A permanent Nemmy staff as a veteran reward?
  16. Hero side mayhem missions — with jet pack rewards pre-14.
  17. War Walls coming down?!
  18. A Statesman TF, going up against Recluse et al.
  19. New content/contacts post-50 in I8.
  20. More Double XP weekends.

Yowzers.

UPDATE: Here’s a summary. Looooots more detail. Glee!

UPDATE:

16. Rewards system: 1st veteran reward 3 months Trenchcoats on all characters. They are a back option, IE like a cape. There are veteran rewards planned for up to 3 years of subscription. (April)

17. Wings: an unlockable costume piece. Wings will move in flight. (very impressed with look of wings).

18. Jetpacks eventually coming down the road. (Flight options). Castle has made a zillion and will kill posi if he is asked to make one more.

Flight Glee!

New patch on Test …

• Swift, Quickness and Lightning Reflexes now grant a bonus to Flight Speed, in addition to their existing Resistance to Flight Speed debuffs.

• Reduced Endurance Cost for Power Pool Flight

Hap-pee!

Oh, and …

• Teleport Beacons (Tech and Arcane) added to City of Heroes. All Paragon City zones are now accessible through the Base Teleporter. To get a zone’s beacon for your base, simply hit all of that zone’s “explore” badge locations while in Supergroup mode (it doesn’t matter if you personally have that exploration badge already or not). The zones added are: Croatoa, Eden, Terra Volta, Kings Row, Founders Falls, Peregrine Island, Galaxy City, Brickstown, Rikti Crash Site, Independence Port, Talos Island,
Steel Canyon, Skyway City, and Atlas Park .

Yay. Time to revisit Where Next from the CoJ ‘porters.

Vidiotmaps

Huh. Never saw this posted anywhere before, but I’ve been trying (unsuccessfully, natch) to get to the Vidiotmaps site for weeks. It is the home of the greatest map resources, map patch stuff, badge tracking, etc. anywhere for CoX.

Or, was.

So, going over to Badge-Hunter.com, I find the Vidiotmaps page with plenty of stuff that’s been done in there since this news blurb:

Sunday, July 02, 2006 – One of the companies involved with hosting vidiotmaps.com has gone out of business. This will be the temporary location of vidiotmaps until everything gets worked out. Please be advised that this quasi-mirror does not have full functionality and is a work in progress.

At first glance, most if not all of the Vidiotmaps stuff seems to be there (including Mayhem Mission maps), plus all sorts of other goodies. Yay. (The LJ article also has a link to the ParagonMaps
map resource, which looks interesting.)

Patches and Glitches

New patch out today.

Global Chat was completely offline for some time (supposed to be back on by now, but haven’t seen confirmation).The server status
page includes Global Chat status.

And logging out or getting sent to the Grandville Hospital is locking toons in Limbo. The Devs recommend staying out of Grandville for the nonce.

As to the patch itself …

General

  • Improved network performance across the board.
  • Fix for pets to get through doors more easily if they get in each other’s way.
  • Long distance Supergroup invites no longer crash the map.

Power

  • Hyper Phase Temporary Power now has the 30 second shut down.
  • Gambler’s Cut for Stalkers and Scrappers now properly calculates Critical Strikes.
  • The 5% Defense reduction in Scrapper and Brute versions of Unyielding has been reduced to a 3.75% Defense reduction. This value matches then unenhanced Defense gained from the Tough Hide passive power in the same power set. The Tanker version remains unchanged, as the values already match properly. [What’s a few percent between friends?]
  • Added Toxic Resist to Sonic Dispersion power for Corruptors, Controllers and Defenders. The help text has always stated that Toxic damage was resisted by this power, so we added it.

City Zones

  • Players should no longer get stuck in the Pocket D Elevators. [Never happened to me, but, then, I haven’t used PocketD to go into PocketD for, oh, months.]

Missions

  • Moved certain spawns in CoT Maps to higher ground for hostage purposes.

Tasks

  • Several doors which were giving XP but were not supposed to have had the xp reward removed.

Bases

  • Items placed in Storage Containers are saved immediately.
  • Base storage will now allow combined enhancements to be stored/removed.

Tailor

  • Fixed the Gloves for Huge Robotic 3.
  • Huge Upper Body Jacket selection now has matching sleeves. [Maybe Mr. R. needs to get something a bit more casual …]

Chat

  • Added additional logging and error checking code to global chat. [Which may be why it’s not working? 😛 ]

World

  • Fixed a problem with pets getting stuck in elevators.

City of Heroes

Powers

  • Tanker War Mace: The order in which the powers Clobber and Jawbreaker are received have been swapped. This means that Jawbreaker will now be available at level 4, which should help War Mace’s ability to deal damage at lower levels. Lower level characters that have already selected Clobber will still have it and can continue to use it and slot it normally.
  • Power Boost epic power now works properly with Kinetics, Transfusion.
  • Peacebringers in Light Form can no longer appear invisible to players who suppress extra player effects.
  • Defender Epic PowerBuild Up now enhances Transfusion’s heal.

City of Villains

Badges

  • Born In Battle Accolade no longer needs the Nigh Indestructible badge. It requires the Unbreakable badge instead.
  • Added the Defeat Recluse badge to patron arcs that were missing it.

Missions

  • Nemesis Mole Machines no longer give experience.
  • The first mission of Citadel’s Task Force now gives a reward as expected.
  • Added a Patron Respec to the first Patron Story Arcs.
  • Modified the Lorenz Ansaldo mission to make the generators smaller.
  • Completion of the Temple of the Waters Strike Force now awards the badge correctly.

Powers

  • Domination is now usable when the caster is under the effects of Hold, Stun or Sleep.
  • Changed first tier Mastermind Upgrade power descriptions to “Recharge: Fast.” [Yay! The going-in-the-door delay while summoining henchfolk is really irksome, and serves little purpose.]
  • The Domination effect for Dominators now grants them some protection from most status effects for the duration of the effect.
  • Corrected short help text of Corruptor Cold Domination Ice Shields and Glacial Shields to reflect Melee, Ranged and AoE defense bonuses.
  • Stalker Placate Powers endurance costs are now more consistent.
    Mastermind Henchmen Medics/Protector Bots now heal/repair as expected. [Yay!]

City Zones

  • Stopped Kalinda from floating above ground in Mercy Island.
  • Improved the paths of Pier 2 and Pier 7 Scrapyarder spawns in Sharkhead Isle.
  • Fixed elevated Arachnos Flier paths which were causing clipping in Grandville.
  • Fixed a bug where Arachnoid Web Frames were not visible in Grandville.
  • Brute Electric Armor Power Surge now has the correct feedback at end of the effect.

Tasks

  • Villains who have already received their Patron Power Sets will be granted a Patron Respec upon logging in. This respec stacks with the Thorn Tree respecs as well as the free respecs given out when major power changes happen. This respec allows your character to do the Patron content at any point in their career, even level 50, and be able to add the Patron Powers to the character. These respecs can be redeemed from Arbiter Lupin.

World

  • Fixed a missing Mission Door in Grandville.
  • Fixed a mysterious floating beam in Mercy Island.

Critters

  • Players no longer get experience when Coral minions expire on their own.

Future zones

Long interview with Archon Voss:

I can tell you that currently the city planners have decided that with the Rikti now quelled, and Arachnos identified, that it is time to rebuild. Faultline will be the first project, along with zone clean ups in Boomtown and expansions. It’s safe to start bringing War Walls down.

Hmmm.  Very cool.  The Boomtown and Faultline zones are almost wastes of space (and certainly redundant). Some evolution of story is certainly something to look forward to.

Some cool hints as to the future of CoX …

Which, coincidentally, ties into this.

Base notes

Various comments from Positron about upcoming changes to bases.

 Two of the biggest complaints we see about the base system is “Stuff is too expensive” and “It takes us too long to get a base that does anything useful.”

Statesman and I have looked closely at the data. We have looked at various Supergroup sizes and how they have been earning Prestige since CoV launched. One thing became clear, and that was that players were not earning Prestige at the rate that we had expected them to.

To this end, you can expect to see an (approximately) 25% increase in Prestige earning. This will be in an upcoming patch (have to get it through QA).

To address the issue of “It takes us too long to get a base that does anything useful” we are adding in some new rooms (in the same patch):

He goes on to describe some new “starter” rooms with lower capabilities and lower costs.

Our goal has been refined since the original launch of City of Villains. We now want to allow a small Supergroup of 4 or 5 fairly active players to be able to afford something new in their base every few weeks. These new, lower cost rooms, and combo Control/Energy item, allow us to do just that, without making large Supergroups attain the top tier stuff too quickly.

This week Statesman and I (among others) will begin looking at the larger Supergroups and determining where the shortcomings are at that end of the system and figure out what we need to implement in order to get larger Supergroups to a level where both they and we are happy.

Even better is a later comment that they are looking at an auxiliary item for base teleporters that will send you straight back to the mission (or mission door).  Glee!  That would make it worth going to bases rather than to hospital in many cases.

Most exciting, perhaps — the whole question of base “rent” is in play. 

 In regards to Rent: This is one of the items we are looking at closely this week. The “glass ceiling” was a design decision to prompt SGs into recruiting more members to get past it. It’s fairly obvious (and has been for months) that you all universally hate the idea.

I don’t mind rent all that much — I wish it were lower, and I wish you didn’t have to frelling run back to city hall to pay it, but as it’s the only thing that causes an SG to actually do much on a continuing basis, it’s not a bad mechanism.  That said, if it goes away, I shall shed no tears.

Amusing from the above were the never-satisfied people who requested (demanded) that if rent were eliminated, all the previously paid Prestige be refunded.  Yikes.

Double the Pleasure, Part Two

Yuppers.

Heroes and Villains,
Many of you have heard about it, and now it is quickly approaching.
All players get a chance to earn Double XP (including double Prestige and Inf/Inf) just for playing the game THIS weekend.
Here are the times:
Start: Friday, July 21st at 9am PST / 12pm EST
Finish: Sunday, July 23rd, 8:59pm PST / 11:59pm EST
Why are we doing this? Why, I’m glad you asked! This is a special thank you, because we really do appreciate you all-through the thick and thin.
You get to decide how you want to take advantage of this. Perhaps you want to work on your alts, or get that one character up to level 50. It is simply all up to you.
So what is the catch? No catches. It’s just that easy
So let that XP just pour in…and HAVE FUN!

Margie’s already, “Let us talk, then, about our CoX plans for the weekend …”

HeroStats

It occurred to me the other day that I almost never run HeroStats any more.  Back when I was doing Psi-clone all the time, it was de rigeur.  I couldn’t live without it.  Now — well I ran it for the first time yesterday, briefly, in a month or more, and then turned it off as an unnecessary drain on system resources.

The difference is largely that I don’t have any toons like PC that are heavy buffers and other timed power types.  None of my Tanks / Brutes / Scrappers / Masterminds really worry about when something is going to wear off or be back available again, beyond what the power tray and the power icons (now) show. 

I might do a bit of running with it for a couple of toons, briefly, to see where my accuracy and damage are running.  But as a perpetual monitoring/timing tool?  Or to know the estimated minutes to level?  At the moment, I don’t need it.

If I get back into the Controller or Defender game again, I’ll reconsider.

Virgil Irony

I am amused that this blog entry shows up as the fourth entry in Google if you search on “bat’zul infernal” (and this one is third). Yikes.
I am even more amused, as I read the post and its comments that Black Pharoh (who is on this SF with us) was one of the Sanguine Society folks who was also running the same SF that same day as the CoI was doing it.
I’m doing some research into the Bat’Zul/Infernal final mission to figure out how best to handle it. There are some good notes there. Lots of purples for the Stalkers. Figure out what debuffs, if any, we can throw on the Infernal. And, from Doyce since then, try and figure out how to rope Infernal and Bat’zul (and company) into all fighting each other. That latter is more difficult now that clicking the altars takes down invis, but worth consideration.

Double your pleasure, double your fun?

So various bits of chit-chat about a Double XP period on Test today, Friday, along with double Influence and Prestige. Okay, big whoop.
But then there are rumors that there’s going to be a Double XP Event on Live — next weekend:

For all you City of Heroes and City of Villains players out there, NCSoft let us know that there will be a “Double XP Weekend” soon. From 11AM CST on Friday, July 21 until 9PM CST Sunday, July 23, everything you do in the game will get you twice the usual XP. According to NCSoft, the weekend “will give players the opportunity to level up their characters and gain access to many of the new features available in both City of Heroes and City of Villains”.

It’s been echoed at Warcry, but I’ve seen nothing official/red-name on the boards.
So — unfounded rumor? Well-laid plan? Distorted interpretation of today’s Test event? Time will tell.
(Lots of bitching about it being over San Diego Comic-Con weekend, interestingly.)
And, if true — hmmmm … wonder what toons I’d want to push that weekend. Go for existing high-levels, make another set of middies into higher levels, or try to push as many lowbies into travel powers as possible?

Global Chat Frelled

Quoth Cricket (emphasis mine):

It has now been confirmed that we are unable to revert the global chat system. We understand that this affects a large percentage of our players, and for several days great efforts have been put forth to restore the global chat system to its original state.
The investigation is still ongoing, and additional measures are being put in place. Once this is complete, the global chat system is going to be backed up every 20 minutes.
We understand that this affects a large number of our players, and we apologize to those who were affected. Please note that there will be compensation for this issue. As previously stated, additional information will be posted about the global chat status as soon as it comes in. Although a revert is not possible, new information is expected to arrive in the future.

It’s been a pain, to be sure, but no more than, say, toggle drops on zoning or similar technical glitches (for me, at least). I don’t see a need for “compensation” (except, maybe in gaming terms — some sort fo freebee maybe). Heck, it’s been balanced by having temp timed powers never going away — Hildy and Torchy mopped up Croatoa with our never-ending Runes of Warding …

Gender bender

Female CoX player who does voice chat with your gameplaying peers? Worried that all those grotesquely sexist male CoX players will be turned off / turned on / dismiss you / hit on you / be inexplicably challenged by your competence at gaming?
Fear not! Now you, too, can have a male-sounding voice worthy of Brian Blessed. Then all those nassssty adolescent boys won’t be intimidated by your 1337 gamer skillz.
(N.B. While most of the CoXers I know are male, the females (presuming I actuallly know their genders) include some of the most terrifyingly competent players out there. My wife heads up that list. So if you, as a male player, are dismissive of female players, get the hell over it. If you are intimidated by them — well, you damn well should be.)
(via BoingBoing)

TF/SF Mob Difficulties – an Inquiry

Okay, since I know there are Many Knowledgable People out there, certainly someone can answer this.
What determines the mob level in a Task Force/Strike Force?

  1. The level of the team leader (star)
  2. The rep of the team leader
  3. The average level of the team
  4. The average rep of the team
  5. The highest level on the team
  6. The highest rep on the team
  7. The TF/SF itself (i.e., it’s fixed)
  8. It varies between TF/SFs

Every time a TF/SF comes up blinding purple or blah blue, everyone asks the question, and everyone seems to have a different opinion. Does someone have the definitive answer?

Planner software

I’ve been a long-time user of Joe Chott’s CoH Planner for forever-and-a-day (or at least as long as I’ve played CoH). BD pointed out that the program hadn’t been updated in a while (since I5 or so — maybe a bit more recently, but definitely fallen behind), and recommended looking at Sherksilver’s Character Planner instead.
Downloaded it this morning. A couple of thoughts.

  1. Since it works, and is being updated, I’ll probably move to this. That’s made easier by the program’s import function, which will bring in a CoH Planner character into the system (kinda-sorta … a couple of glitches there).
  2. The user interface is similar (since the functionality is similar), though a lot busier and less well organized that Joe Chott’s program. One thing that both helps and hinders: slot levels for the enhancements are shown on the same screen, which is both a tremendous convenience and a lot more visual clutter. You do have control over nearly all the fonts and font sizes and font colors — and you need it, too.
  3. Sherksilver’s program has a lot of added features, tables, calculators, trackers, etc. It’s a much more complete resource. If all you’re doing is tracking slotting for your toons (99% of what I’m looking for), that’s not a huge benefit, but it’s interesting to view (e.g., look at movement speeds with different powers and enhancements on).

So I’ll probably start converting my active toons over to the new program. Thanks for the reference, BD!