Category: Resources & Rules

This subject came up in conversation the other day, discussing PvP. Here, via Castle, are the official numbers on Toggle Drop powers under I7 (which reduces them some):

Inherent: Brawl: 5% for 1 Toggle
Blaster: Devices: Trip Mine: 5% for 1 Toggle
Blaster: Devices: Time Bomb: 19% for 1 Toggle
Blaster: Electrical Manipulation: Charged Brawl: 5% for 1 Toggle
Blaster: Electrical Manipulation: Havok Punch: 22% for 1 Toggle
Blaster: Energy Manipulation: Bone Smasher: 22% for 1 Toggle
Blaster: Energy Manipulation: Energy Punch: 5% for 1 Toggle
Blaster: Fire Manipulation: Fire Sword: 5% for 1 Toggle
Blaster: Fire Manipulation: Fire Sword Circle: 22% for 1 Toggle
Blaster: Ice Manipulation: Frozen Fists: 5% for 1 Toggle
Blaster: Ice Manipulation: Ice Sword: 22% for 1 Toggle
Defender Force Field: Force Bolt: 8% and 2% for 1 Toggle; 0.16% chance of 2 Toggles
Controller Force Field: Force Bolt: 5% for 1 Toggle
Mastermind Force Field: Force Bolt: 5% for 1 Toggle
Defender Force Field: Repulsion Bomb: 27% and 5% for 1 Toggle; 1.35% chance of 2 Toggles
Controller Force Field: Repulsion Bomb: 19% for 1 Toggle
Mastermind Force Field: Repulsion Bomb:19% for 1 Toggle
Defender Force Field: Repulsion Field: 5% and 2% chance for 1 Toggle per 1/2 second; 0.1% chance for 2 Toggles per 1/2 second
Controller Force Field: Repulsion Field: 3% for 1 Toggle per 1/2 second
Mastermind Force Field: Repulsion Field: 3% for 1 Toggle per 1/2 second
Defender: Kinetics: Repel: 5% and 2% chance for 1 Toggle per 1/2 second; 0.1% chance for 2 Toggles per 1/2 second
Controller: Kinetics: Repel: 3% for 1 Toggle per 1/2 second
Corruptor: Kinetics: Repel: 3% for 1 Toggle per 1/2 second
Peacebringer: White Dwarf Strike: 5% for 1 Toggle Defender
Storm Summoning: Lightning Storm: 20% and 4% for 1 Toggle; 0.8% chance of 2 Toggles
Controller Storm Summoning: Lightning Storm: 17% for 1 Toggle
Defender Storm Summoning: Thunder Clap: 12% and 2% for 1 Toggle; 0.4% chance of 2 Toggles
Controller Storm Summoning: Thunder Clap: 8% for 1 Toggle
Warshade: Black Dwarf Strike: 5% for 1 Toggle
Stalker: Assassin’s Claw: 22% and 4% for 1 Toggle; 0.88% chance for 2 Toggles
Stalker: Assassin’s Strike: 22% and 4% for 1 Toggle; 0.88% chance for 2 Toggles
Stalker: Assassin’s Blow: 22% and 4% for 1 Toggle; 0.88% chance for 2 Toggles
Stalker: Assassin’s Blade: 22% and 4% for 1 Toggle; 0.88% chance for 2 Toggles
Stalker: Assassin’s Impaler: 22% and 4% for 1 Toggle; 0.88% chance for 2 Toggles
Stalker: Assassin’s Eclipse: 22% and 4% for 1 Toggle; 0.88% chance for 2 Toggles
Dominator: Bone Smasher: 5% for 1 Toggle
Dominator: Total Focus: 64% for 1 Toggle
Dominator: Incinerate: 5% for 1 Toggle
Dominator: Blaze: 64% for 1 Toggle
Dominator: Ice Sword: 5% for 1 Toggle
Dominator: Greater Ice Sword: 64% for 1 Toggle
Dominator: Mind Probe: 5% for 1 Toggle
Dominator: Psychic Shockwave: 64% for 1 Toggle
Dominator: Skewer: 5% for 1 Toggle
Dominator: Ripper: 64% for 1 Toggle
Mastermind: Assault Bot Smash: 5% for 1 Toggle
Corruptor: Traps: Time Bomb: 19% for 1 Toggle
Corruptor: Traps: Trip Mine: 75% and 37% for 1 Toggle; 27.75% chance for 2 Toggles
Mastermind: Traps: Trip Mine: 75% and 37% for 1 Toggle; 27.75% chance for 2 Toggles

And now you know.

Mayhem missions are a new I7 bit that lets villains run around destroying the scenery (with possible side missions). But for heroes?
Quoth Statesman in the “Devs! Please Confirm Hero Mayhem Coming!” thread:

Yes. It’s coming. Safeguard missions. Being worked on right now (outside my office, in fact).

Cool. Though “Safeguard” sounds way to much like “Protect the Artifact” kind of stuff. Would be nice to have a “Your mission is to destroy as many of these evil CoT talismens / Crey computers / Council war machines as you can …” kind of thing, so that we can pound on crap.

From the CoH LJ:

I got the Task Force Commander accolade presumably for having been on the default 6 TFs. It gives +5% to HP and access to Shoulder Epaulets, which I couldn’t find at Icon. I couldn’t really find much else new (I was really looking forward to some of the futuristic stuff I saw in screenshots) aside from some Plant and Robot stuff.

Not so much into the Epaulets, but, damn, nice to get another accodade (and another 5% HP boost).

There’s a “not accepting invites” option under the team-seeking window.

Praise Allah.
Actually, that needs a bit of refinement. Like, “Not accepting invites outside of SG” or “Not accepting invites outside of Coaltion” or “Not accepting invites outside of Friends” or something. That’s assuming that this is an actual control (blocking invites) vs. just another flag (that people ignore).
No, really — I was in the rare position the other day of running a PUG. I looked in the Hollows for potential members (since that’s where I was) and every single person except one was running with “Not seeking a Team” — even though there was one person, right there, broadcasting “Lvl 9 Tanker LFT!” It’s no wonder people ignore those little flags. (And, let’s face it — do even users of those flags make use of the fine tuning, i.e., “Seeking Patrol” vs “Seeking Task Force” etc.?).
I’d love to be able to easily limit the folks who could send me invites. If nothing else though, if this is an actual control not just a flag, it will encourage pre-invite tells.

I7 stuff is now in Test, and among the changes:

Arch Villains/Heroes and Giant Monsters have been significantly boosted. They should now require more people in order for them to be defeated, especially at higher levels.

Given how quickly most AVs go down against a decent-sized team, that’s probably not too bad a thing — though it makes taking on some of the tougher ones (Infernal, Lusca) … daunting.
At least some testers say that the boost is in damage done (+10%)
Despite some initial notes on the subject, Elite Bosses (the “Two-person-team-capable” AVs) are not being changed.
Aside from that, the I7 Test Release notes are here. Specific items of note:

4. Issue 7 is not fully optimized yet. Players with low end systems may have serious performance issues.

One of my biggest worries is that bringing CoV graphics to CoH is going to cause major graphics issues. Glad they’re watching this.

7. Although characters now keep their Origin-based attack power past level 10, characters who have already lost the power by leveling up are not being given the power back. This is a bug and will be addressed in a later patch.

Shrug. This sounds nice, but the Origin powers are so trivial in damage (Brawl or below), and not enhanceable, it’s not something I would imagine keeping in my tray anyway.

BASE ITEMS
• Inspiration Receptacle: This item allows all members of the Supergroup to store Inspirations that they may not be using, but other members can use to greater benefit. A permission set in the SG Permissions allows a character to withdraw Inspirations from the Receptacle.
• Enhancement Container: This item allows all members of the Supergroup to store Enhancements in the Supergroup’s base. Members with the proper SG Permission will be able to withdraw Enhancements from the Container.
• Salvage Bin: This item allows all members of the Supergroup to store salvage in the Supergroup’s base. Members with the proper SG Permission will be able to withdraw Salvage (and just “see it” from the base’s worktables as well).

Yay. Oh, yay. Nice to be able to save stuff, both usable by others and salvage cluttering up one’s pockets.

• Modified PvE critter accuracy. Defense powers will now work equally well against critters, regardless if they have higher accuracy. For instance, your defense powers will work equally well against a Boss or any critter up to 5 levels higher than you, as it does for an equal level minion. Previously, a more accurate critter could circumvent much of your defense, but this will no longer happen. This change is designed to alleviate the disparity between Defense and Damage resistance powers (for instance, a player with super reflexes will now be more effective against a high level critter, boss or Arch villain). This change has no effect on a player who does not have any Defense. This change does not affect PvP.

Thus abruptly increasing the utility of both Super Reflexes and Force Fields. Huzzah. And, with that:

• Reduced the effectiveness of Super Reflexes defense to AoE attacks (stalker and scrapper). With I6, Super Reflexes was given a very high bonus to AoE attacks in order to make it more effective against bosses and Arch Villains, since they typically use AoE powers, but with the new To Hit calculations, this is no longer necessary.
• Super Reflexes Passive Defense abilities have been increased in effectiveness by 1/3rd.

Devs giveth, devs taketh away, devs shuffle the deck chairs …

• Reduced End costs on Claws high end powers.
• The Claws Power sets for both Scrappers and Stalkers have new animations for the powers Swipe and Strike. The animation for Slash has been replaced with the old Strike animation in order to better match the cast, recharge and damage values.

If I weren’t going to be busy with a new squid, I might roll up another claws character.

• All powers which have an Endurance Drain component will now drain a percentage of a PvE target’s Endurance, rather than a set number of Endurance Points. This fixes the issues created when enemies’ Endurance Pools were increased.

Interesting. This is mostly electrical, though I think there’s a Dark Melee power that does this, too.

• Defeat Badges now require that you or your team do 10% or more damage to the entity to receive credit for the badge. (The former system required that you deal 25% or more damage to get credit).

Balances the Giant Monster issue above, mostly.

• Troll Task Force badge is now given out for spending time in The Hollows.

Fun. And, I suspect, something most of my toons will auto-get.

City Zones
• Spawns updated and adjusted in several city zones. Street encounters in lower level zones have more variety.

Cool. I’ll be interested to see what that variety works out to be. In numbers? Levels? Mob types?

[Heroes] • For players with both City of Heroes and City of Villains access, Hero characters have access to all formerly Villain-only costume pieces.
[Villains] • Many new costume pieces are available.

YEAH, BABY! YEAH! There’s a reason I went through all that effort with costume tokens last weekend.
Though the question is, are the new pieces on the CoV side also available on the CoH side? (I presume so, or there will be hell to pay.)
Lots of other stuff. Lots of fixes to archery. Lots of bits on the new Patron powers, the new CoV powers, etc. RTWT.

I had no idea that there was a line command to let you set your badge in CoH or CoV. Including to a Gladiator badge. Which, in conjunction with costume changes, could be pretty keen.

In the I8-and-beyond forum threads, Bluewrecker noted:

Would it be possible to get a comment on two things that could play into this with all the talk today of upcoming plans? I’m sure many, many players would love to know where these two things stand:
1. Being able to get additional slots on a server for more characters (beyond the current 12).
2. Being able to transfer characters from one server to another.

Statesman answered most interestingly:

BlueWrecker, we really want to add these features…we really do. Some things just came up that have prevented us from implementing them sooner. But we are working on them.

Coolness.

From the Second Anniversary Address by Statesman and Positron:

With Issue 7 mostly “in the can” as it were (bugs aside), the leads here have been focusing on the future of the franchise. There is a major effort underway on “end-game” content for max-level characters, the first part of which you will see in Issue 8, which is due out later this year.
Issue 8 will also bring with it the Veterans’ Reward system. This will allow us to give out special thank-you gifts to our players based on the number of months they have been subscribed. These gifts will range from costume pieces to powers to base items and beyond. You don’t even have to do anything to get them, other than keeping an active account.
Beyond that, we are looking to release another Issue building up the story towards our next retail box, due in 2007. This will include going back and revamping some of the zones from City of Heroes, using everything we’ve learned from making City of Villains and Issue 7, plus a bunch of other cool stuff including new powersets and an epic archetype. Of course for the retail box we will be creating all-new zones and content based on the results of the forum poll we posted last month. The retail box will be an expansion to both City of Heroes and City of Villains.

Glee!

According to the newsletter from CoH I just received, toons who sign in on Friday, April 28th (or “during the month of June” — which sounds like a typo), for the will get a special 2nd Anniversary badge. And, if you already have one from the 1st Anniversary, “the combination will unlock a special treat.”
Hmmmmm.
Also …

Two Year Anniversary Party at Pocket D!
Heroes and Villains are invited to come get your groove on at our Silver Age, 1950’s to the 1970’s theme party to celebrate two great years of crime fighting action!
The morning of April 28th we are going to toss all you cool cats a free costume token for some stylin threads to pay homage to the superheroes of old! Take all day getting ready (without violating any copyright laws) and then come get funky at the Pocket D. We hear some VIP heroes might be stepping out to dance with you, so donít miss out!
And don’t worry, we’ll throw you another costume token on the 29th so you can get back into your street duds and ready for action.
Where: Pocket D – All Live Servers (Not Test)
When: 7 – 10 PM CST, Friday, April 28th
What: Silver Age Anniversary Celebration
Why: To Celebrate the City of Heroes Two year anniversary!

And, finally, some trivia. In the last two years of CoX …
17,558,847 Characters have been created
551,287 Supergroups have been created
2,034,557,881,794 Influence has been earned

Here.
Includes the Thugs powerset for Masterminds (Pistols, Call Thugs, Dual Wield [pistols], Equip Thugs, Empty Clips, Call Enforcer, Gang War, Call Bruiser, Upgrade Equipment) …
… what the … Pistols? For a Mastermind? And not a Scrapper? WAUGH!
Electric Melee for Brutes (Charged Brawl, Havoc Punch, Jacobs Ladder, Build Up, Thunder Strike, Taunt, Chain Induction, Lightning Clap, Lightning Rod), along with Electric Armor (Charged Armor, Lightning Field, Conductive Shield, Static Shield, Grounded, Lightning Reflexes, Conserve Power, Power Sink, Power Surge). All sound fun.
Stalkers are getting Dark Melee and Dark Armor (flavored similarly to Scrappers).
Masterminds will also get to designate minions as a Bodyguards, which lets them take a third of the damage taken by the MM (who only takes two-thirds). Nice.

Patch Notes Here.
Most of the stuff was already previously commented on (when it went to test). The items that caught my eye this time:

The maximum mission reward that a character can receive is now character level +3. Example: A level 10 character (not sidekicked) in a group running a level 20 mission will receive the equivalent reward of a level 13 mission upon completion.

Guess that will end the “you wanna bridge for us?” thang, if I understand it correctly.
Positron later noted:

Just so you all understand… The change is ONLY for the “end of mission” rewards, not the individual defeats of enemies. +3 levels was chosen simply because the level range for fair XP sharing during missions is around +3, that and when you are running at the highest difficulty level, +3 enemies will tend to show up.

Moving right along …

* Help Channel: New players will receive a new tab called “help” which defaults to a new server-wide help channel. We encourage experienced players to share their wisdom.
* Chat spam limiter: You are now allowed one message per second, You are allowed to break the rule 5 times. Every second you don’t chat one rule break is forgotten. If you break the rule more than 5 times you will be banned from chat for 2 minutes. If you continue to try to spam while chat banned, you will continually reset your 2 minute timer.

Cool. Previously said it, but cool.
Costume tokens were also handed out, finally.

On the I7 hit parade:

1. Freespec!
2. Am I goofy for saying I don’t see significant graphics differences between these pre-I7 vs. I7 screen shots? Not enough to warrent, at least, the no-doubt ruinous added burden on my graphics card.
3. UI changes in I7:
   

   [T]he protectors of Paragon will also have access to Global Chat upgrades such as an improved ability to switch between chat channels, default channels, and a channel search feature.
   Their new User Interface will allow heroes to fine tune control of their powers with buff icons that blink right before they go away, toggling of buff powers in the icon list, and the ability to access character and power information through the r-click menu.

   The Global Chat stuff doesn’t sound that exciting (it may make more sense once it comes out). The idea of having buff icons blink before they wear off is a nice one … though, now that I think of it, I think they mean the little personal “this power is up” icons under the health meter, which I don’t reference all that often. Adding some right-click context menu stuff would be helpful, too.
   Still, not all that thrilling.

Stateman explains how mob base THs and Accuracies are changing in I7 to make things more scalable, and how this ties in with To Hit Debuff changes and other stuff that makes my head hurt.

Now Testing in the Training Room – 3/31/06 – 11am CST. Not all that faboo, but a couple of interesting things.

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Powers
• Leadership/Vengeance will no longer stack from multiple casters. In other words, only one application of Vengeance buffs can enhance a group at a time. [Pity, that, but not a huge issue to me.]
• Fixed combat Spam for IR Goggles. They no longer report that they increase your resistances.
• Changed To Hit Debuffs to use the 5/10/20 Enhancement progression. These were causing problems with Dual Enhancements (such as Hamidon Enzyme Exposure) [there’s more on this here and here.]
• Hurricane’s Repel effect is now slightly less abusive in PvP situations. It will still Interrupt Assassin Strikes, unless the Stalker has Repel Resistance, but it should no longer be possible to pin a player in a corner during Base Raids.
• PvPTaunt changes: When a player is being taunted, the effect can now be broken by running a good distance away. Additionally, hiding out of LOS of the taunter will cause the effect to expire sooner.
• You can now string multiple teleports in a row w/out delay of actual teleport function (does not wait for animation to finish). This fixes a bug that would sometimes cause skips in animation when stringing together multiple teleports. [Um … okay, I have to actually try that to see what they’re talking about.]
Badges
• Spider Smasher badge is now granted properly.
• Fortunata Seer badge is now granted properly
• Not all Ancestor Spirits were counting toeards the Swift Steel badge. This has been fixed.
• Longbow Tanker gladiator is now properly unlocked when the Politician badge is granted.
• Female Paragon Protectors defeated now count towards the 7th Generation Paragon Protector gladiator badge.
• All Madness Mages now count towards the Soul Binder badge.
Bases
• Characters in base raids are now set to an effective level of 50 rather than 40. (Preparation for 41-50 villain content)
• All Base Items are now level 50. This should make them more sturdy, and in the case of Base Defenses, more effective.
Tailor
• Fixed bug with sleeveless jackets that caused sleeves to be changed by default when players begin a Tailor session.
Chat
• Help Channel: New players will receive a new tab called “help” which defaults to a new server-wide help channel. We encourage experienced players to share their wisdom.
Existing players will not get this chat tab, and will have to add this channel to existing or new tabs. [Ooooh. I like. Now, if people will just use it as directed …]
• Chat spam limiter: You are now allowed one message per second, You are allowed to break the rule 5 times. Every second you don’t chat one rule break is forgotten. If you break the rule more than 5 times you will be banned from chat for 2 minutes. If you continue to try to spam while chat banned, you will continually reset your 2 minute timer. [Oh, yeah, baby! The Dash likes!]
CITY OF HEROES
City Zones
• Shadow Shard: Rebalanced the Kora Fruit award. Harvested fruit are now medium-sized inspirations rather than large-sized. [Not all that iimpressed with Kora Fruit anyway. Ho-hum.]
Badges
• Heroes can earn a badge by defeating Mu Guardians.
CITY OF VILLAINS
Powers
• Fixed a bug that was causing Longbow Wardens with the Gravity Distortion power to do too much damage.
• Void Hunter Rifle no longer does extra damage to Kheldians. The Stun and Knockback effect against Kheldians has also been removed.
• The Longbow Boss, Romulus, has had his resistances increased.
• Stalkers’ Placate ability no longer grants the same strength Stealth in PvP as Hide. It is now roughly 75\p of that value. This should reduce the ability of Stalkers to fade out of view of an entire group of players after attacking.
• Fixed Lethal portion of Dominator Plant Control Roots — it was doing unresistable damage and should not have been. Also, the lethal damage will no longer report as smashing in the combat log.
• Corruptor Heat Loss power was not modified for PvP, allowing it to drain 4 times as much endurance from players as intended. This has been corrected.
Missions
• Changed Psimon Omega missions to span 30-35 (to match contact level range).
• Changed re-spec trials so that they go 24-33 and 34-40 (Preparation for 41-50 villain content)
• Now Arbiter Leery will always be willing to talk to you after you’ve done the respec trial.
• Completing Mongoose’s mission arc once again grants a souvenir.
• Completing Billy Heck’s mission arc grants a souvenir.
City Zones
• Bloody Bay: Patrol missions now correctly award experience upon completion.
Installation
• Fixed issue when launching City of Villains for the first time (from a fresh install) in 98/ME. An error message appeared stating that 1024×768 is not supported in fullscreen mode and that the resolution is being switched to 800×600. 1024×768 resolution was and is supported.

Mechanics and specifics of the new CoV high-level “Patron Powers” — the equivalent (with various game material overlaid) of the Epic Power Pools in CoH. Cool. I doubt I’ll get a character that high — but stranger things have happened.
The info will also be available in game before you choose.

Okay, went back and actually read the only thing I could find on the subject, back here. Statesman said:

AND now…we’re changing the way Archvillains spawn. A ton of forum goers disliked adding so many AV’s into missions a while back…so we’ve come up with a solution. If the team size and mission difficulty are ABOVE a certain level, an Archvillain spawns. Below that, players will face only an Elite Boss. If the mission is set on the first two levels of difficulty, it takes 4 heroes or more to spawn an Arch Villain. On the third level, 3 heroes or more. On the fourth level, 2 heroes. On the highest (Invincible), a solo hero will spawn an AV.

So, for PC/A, we should be able to still get Elite Bosses at the 3rd level of Reputation — which should get us better (tougher) spawns, but still keep it in the duoable Elite Boss range.
We’ll have to give that a try.

---

Good guide to reputation here.
The third level is:

Rugged/Vicious – Mission spawns at +1 level to your level (i.e. +0 to +2 mobs, but usually mostly +1 with some +2). Spawn sizes are normal. AVs become Elite Bosses when team-size is two or less.

And this worked great — we did a (non-AV/EB) mish and, carving through orange and reds, the XP was faboo — about 14-15K/minute. Keep that up, and we could be at 50 in 3 hours or less.
As Margie noted, we need to consider what we want our Big Mish to be.

According to Statesman, did you know …

-that Dr. Vahzilok is named after George Vasilakos, owner of Eden Studios (for whom I co-wrote several RPG books).
-that the name Rikti came from a conversation where I said “Rikki Tikki Tavi is a cool name. How can we get that into the game?”
-that the name “Cryptic Studios” was inspired in part by the first RPG book I co-authored, “Cryptozoology.”
-that Shane Hensely, a current designer, created Deadlands.
-that Thomas Foss created a minis game Pirates!
-that Statesman was a character created in several pen and paper super hero RPG’s over a decade ago. Many former character names have found their way into the game.

The overall thread is full of all sorts of intersting CoH trivia. Some of which (“do you remember when?”) I actually, appallingly, remember.

Big article on I7. Coolest bit is the picture at the right, showing how Recluse’s Victory (Atlas Park, other-dimensioned) changes dynamically as the balance between Hero and Villain victories changes. Fun.

Recluse’s Victory, or what the Heroes know as Atlas Park, is the first PvP zone for the series. Heroes and Villains will vie for 7 strongpoints, called “pillboxes” places around the map. Waypoints to these pillboxes are always one click away (no fullscreen map fiddle-faddling needed) and have 4 heavy turrets a piece, which must be destroyed before the pillbox can be captured (and don’t forget that you’ll have to deal with PvP aggression in the meantime!). And when the pillbox is captured… I hope you’re sitting down for this…. a “temporal anchor” is placed, and the buildings around you dynamically re-skin to fit the faction’s vision- reskin not just for you, but for everyone in the zone! In Villain areas, drabness, dead trees, proganda posters, and other signs of Recluse’s influence is everywhere to be seen. Even the large Atlas statue turns to, you guessed it, Lord Recluse with arachnid legs wrapped tightly around the world. In Hero areas, it’s goody two-shoes cheerful cleanliness, flora and fauna, and Justice League banners. When one side captures all the pillboxes, they get five minutes of victory time to try to gain 1,000 PvP points as everyone jockeys for postion. Doing so yields you temporal enhancements that you can take out of the instance, such as a robotic tank. But the real show stopped is this zone-wide dynamic reskinning. It’s never been done before in any MMO, and it’s at least as cool as it sounds.

And also:

Finally, one of my original, comparatively meager complaints against City of Villains was the lack of truly villainous content. All that changes with Mayhem Missions. Whereas you used to get a bank or casino heist mission after completing five newspaper (randomly generated) missions. These special missions will go into the regular rotation, and Mayhem Missions will take their place. Basically, you grab a team of villains, enter a special instance, and wreak as much havoc as you can within a given timeframe. Commit federal no-nos like destroying mailboxes, municipal no-nos like fire hydrant destruction, and those innocent civilians wandering around… heh. It ain’t GTA, and you can’t defeat them, but you can sure make them run scared. Discrete thresholds based on how much damage you do award bonus time. Just about everything is destructible, including buildings! Set them on fire through setting bombs in side missions, or (in another side mission) raid a local shop for the phat loot. Sneak past roving cameras (which, when activated, spawn waves of the newly formed local police force) and break into vaults and secure areas. The rewards and loot you earn are considerable for the minimal time investment (20-30 min, though features like this are still being fine-tunes), and you’ll want friends to gang up for your raids so you’ll be invited to their Mayhem Missions.

Aside from Recluse’s Victory, there’s still (as earlier noted) no glitzy joy for CoH.

Quality of Life Features: (Hereos and Villains)
New Global Chat and UI features improve the overall ‘City of’ experience.
CoH Art Upgrades (Heroes)
City of Heroes gains reflective windows, added bump and specular mapping, a variety of higher resolution textures, and full screen depth of field effects.
New Costume Items

I just hope the Global Chat/UI features (of which I’ve heard zilcho details) make up for what will no doubt be further lagging graphic “enhancements.”

I’ve had an issue over the past few weeks of odd keyboard buffering — most often manifesting with “Hey, I let go of the [w] key but I’m still running forward toward that very unfriendly group of purple mobs!” Well, I thought I was actually wearing out my keyboard, but now I’m thinking that’s not the case.
Last night, the same thing happened a couple of times dodging to the side (and running uncontrollably against the wall for a few moments).
And I’ve realized I’ve had a coincident problem with typing, where suddenly my typing in the chat window will queue up for multiple moments, with nothing coming out for a second or two, then the keyboard buffer slowly emptying. Which is, I’m thinking, the same problem (e.g., the [w] gets queued up while pressed and continues to then execute even after I let off the key).
Question is — WTF? And how to do I fix it?
Need to go to the boards, when I get a chance …

The /cov patch will be going live with “tomorrow morning’s update,” so …
… since they’ll be giving out free costume tokens for each costume slot …
… if you have a toon that could open up a new slot, tonight would be the time to open it (even if you don’t actually fill it with anything).
So PC/A, who took their Founders Falls Icon mission last night, will be finishing their Nemmie hunt tonight so they can get the extra slot (and, thus, an extra free costume build). Give the cost of costuming, that’s a pretty nice deal.