CoX: New little QoL bits

With I16 came some new items that either weren’t in the patch notes, or that people didn’t notice. But this forum thread did.

  1. Status icons show up when “chance of” enhancements fire off.
  2. Broken fire hydrants make noise.
  3. Your level shows up in the HP bar.
  4. “More freedom of movement of the ragdoll physics on the human skeleton’s arms and legs.”
  5. “Some hostages now animate differently while captured, Vahz zombies now do the Frankenstein shuffle and mobs carrying orange body bags now toss them on the floor [more consistently] before attacking.”
  6. No influence cost for difficulty changes (yay!)
  7. Midnighter doors now have the map name above them. [This has been around for a bit, but it’s still nice.]
  8. “When you enter the main building in Grandville, the statues of the four patrons now have their symbols on them (the ones that appear when you use their patron powers).”
  9. Improved NPC street dialog.
  10. “If you choose to have your Stacked Buffs display Numerically (like I do), the number now uses a larger, easier to see, easier to read font.”
  11. “Spectral Knights now disappear on defeat, like Spectral Demons, rather than having the suit of armor hanging in space with their arms up in a screaming action.”
  12. Corrected teleport animations.
  13. Whatever costume slot you are in when you logout, that’s what shows up on the character selection screen next time. [Previously noted here.]
  14. “Arctic Air (controller/dominator) now shows the purple dot effect on confused enemies. Very nice to know who’s on your side and who isn’t.”
  15. “The Taunt for Dark Melee on Tanks now makes a Taunt sound. Also noticed while playing my Shield/Axe Tank that the Taunt sound is different and if you are holding both your shield and axe when taunting they make a metal on metal clanging sound.” “Mace and shield does the same thing, the character points their mace at the enemy then bangs it upon their shield.”

And a prospective change:

A user posted that two devs they chatted with at PAX a couple of weeks ago confirmed that there will be an enhancement that when you’re down to 10% of enemies left in a map, or 10% of required glowies are left, they’ll show up on your map. That will be SO good for kill-all missions, and those redside “plant the bomb” missions. The devs didn’t say when that will go live, only that it’s in the works.

Woot!

CO: More notes on balance, reinforcements, and coming attractions

Bill Roper chats on the current questions of balance.

We’re really working hard right now to dial the difficulty in from both ends of the spectrum. Some builds are very challenging to play, while others are still far too easy. The powers that are dramatically out of balance on either end of the spectrum are the easiest to identify and fix. As we’re finishing this first pass, we’re starting a more refined, surgical look at the powers so we can continue to make as many different combinations of powers fun to play.

I can’t say that I’ve found any combos that are overly easy to play.

What changes are being made to the threat system, particularly on the matter of zone mobs chain-pulling on players in groups?

What players are seeing is something in our reinforcement system at work. Champions Online isn’t a “pull one monster and everyone beat on it” style of game like most MMOs. When you solo through an area, encounter groups (usually 2-3 enemies) interact with you on a group-to-hero basis. When multiple heroes – whether on a team or not – attack these encounter groups, they’ll run and get help because they’re outgunned. A particular enemy from the encounter group gives off a “tell” that they’re running to get reinforcements, usually in the form of a chat bubble. Then they run off to get help. Players can use tactics to stop that enemy from getting reinforcements. This system allows us to scale for to multiple heroes clearing out an area, especially outdoors where people tend to get into the formal structure of a team less often than in instances. To be very clear – there isn’t random “chain-pulling” of enemies onto a player. This is a designed system that takes effect when numerous heroes fight encounter groups.

This doesn’t actually bug me all that much. Indeed, I actually think it’s a good thing.

We have a list of things that just missed the cut that we’re working on now. This includes being able to skip the tutorial after having completed it once with a hero, improving the functionality of the teaming system, doing some refurbishing to the very popular Powerhouse, and a few other things that we just haven’t prioritized yet.

Good to hear, on all accounts.

CO: It’s the Economy, Stupid!

Chronomancer talks about CO’s economy. Folks have been griping about too few drops, too expensive retcons, etc.

Actually, at the risk of alienating people early days, I agree with the caution they’ve shown. Balancing always needs to be handled carefully. Make things too stingy, yes, and people grumble about it not being fun. Make things too easy, and people have the same grumbles. But loosening up always makes people cheer, while tightening down makes folks fume. Better to make few changes, and make things more fun, than to thrash back and forth frequently and “take things away.”

The bottom line of the analysis since they’ve gone live is that … well, yes, the economy was too tight. So there’s changes a-coming, starting on Test this weekend:

We’re increasing the number of white upgrade drops in the world by a substantial amount – close to double of what you’re seeing now.

Yay! Granted, that puts pressure on people’s inventory while in game, so expect some frustration if stores aren’t easier to find.

We’re also flattening out the curve on resources gained for selling upgrades to stores, meaning that you’ll get a lot more for white primaries, a little less at the highest end (blues and purples). This equates to distributing about the same overall potential resources while skewing gains to the lower end. We had originally considered just simply increasing the amount of resources you earned from selling all items to “fix” the economy. However, this would have broken crafting – hence the shifting of primary and secondary upgrade values that maintain a net balance of total resources you have coming in from selling upgrades.

Not breaking crafting is, I guess, good. At any rate, this shows a reassuring level of nuance (assuming they are correct). Ratcheting up the costing slider or the drop slider would be easy, but probably too crude.

We’re also increasing the amount of resources you get for defeating all enemies. This means not only will you naturally get more for doing missions, but you’ll also get more by helping others on their missions or by sweeping the streets. We’re also increasing the resources you get for mission rewards specifically.

More money is probably good.

The retcon pricing curve is going to be much gentler so that players can undo more decisions at any time. It’s important to note that although we’re tuning the overall costing model of retcon during this phase, a substantial retcon will still have a high price. The heroic, thematic nature of the game doesn’t support letting players constantly change their fundamental character concept. But at the same time we want to make it possible for them to completely retcon their character if it’s their goal.

I’m glad they’re easing the curve on this. Honestly, though, I don’t see the problems with letting folks easy re-roll their characters, esp. since I don’t anticipate it’s something that most folks will do.

Finally, we’ll be issuing a free retcon for all heroes when the economy changes go Live since it will take a little time for the effects of the new economy to allow players to build up a retcon bankroll.

I’ve inferred elsewhere that, like CoX, you can only have one “freespec” in your bag. The result here being, if you still have early-days characters that have a freespec, you should probably go ahead and use it before this goes live, since 1 + 1 will still equal 1.

Note that this is all giving us some data points, too — how frequently freespecs are given is always useful info as to how much they should be hoarded or spent.

Anyway, it’s good to see that, yes, they have been paying attention to player unhappiness on this, and that the direction is to loosen up on the money supply a bit. Good times should ensue.

CO: New State of the Game

Chronomancer chats on what’s going on. In summary …

  • New repeatable mission chains for Monster Island are on their way to Test next week
  • Enhancements to the team system to let everyone see more about team missions and team member missions.
  • Some graphics improvements have gone live, but you may need to re-tune your sliders down if they were ratcheted all the way up (for high-end players).
  • No ETA yet on not being able to send resources to other heroes. It’s on the list, but requires “a tech solution.”
  • Balancing continues on powers, and on trying to get more resources into the economy.
  • Getting black and white tinting into the powers is turning out to require some major work on the graphics engine. But … CoX did it!
  • Celestial Powers are coming (yes, we know).
  • They’re working on how to let players skip the Qularr Invasion tutorial if they’ve already done it once. “It’s next up on the list for our content lead, and we’re hoping to have this onto the Public Test Shard as soon as next week.”
  • The plan is to make Club Caprice and the Powerhouse duel-free zones (thank you!) ASAP.
  • The Powerhouse is also going to get a “Danger Room” to let you try out powers against automated enemies. Excellent.

All in all, sounds good.

CoX: I16 is LIVE!

With all the CO-love around here, I haven’t done much CoX writing (or playing). But let’s not let this new issue pass by:

First off, we have Power Customization. Though you’re still in fixed frameworks (in CO-speak), I find the CoX color-choosing setup to be much more useful than CO’s color choices — if nothing else, it allows white and black and light and dark, not to mention being able to see how the power looks being fired off. In some ways, it’s more convenient (to see the look) than CO’s Powerhouse, with it’s Power-Up / Try / Respec cycle.

Note also it’s not just colors, but animations and themes.

New Themes of Spines and Thorny Assault available, including themes of Thorns, Metal Spines, Crystal Spines, and Slate Spines.

New Animation Themes for Super Strength and Martial Arts.Huge variety of customizable powersets, including Cold Domination, Dark Armor, Dark Blast, Dark Melee, Dark Miasma, Devices, Earth Control, Earth Melee, Electric Armor, Electric Assault, Electric Blast, Electric Melee, Electricity Manipulation, Empathy, Energy Assault, Energy Aura, Energy Blast, Energy Manipulation, Energy Melee, Fiery Aura, Fire Assault, Fire Blast, Fire Control, Fire Manipulation, Fire Melee, Force Field, Gravity Control, Ice Armor, Ice Assault, Ice Blast, Ice Control, Ice Manipulation, Ice Melee, Illusion, Invulnerability, Kinetics, Mental Manipulation, Mind Control, Necromancy, Plant Control, Psionic Assault, Psychic Blast, Radiation Blast, Radiation Emission, Regeneration, Sonic Resonance, Sonic Blast, Spines, Stone Armor, Storm Summoning, Super Reflexes, Thermal Radiation, Thorny Assault, Traps, and Willpower.

As far as costs (if you’re talking about going to the Tailor rather than during character creation):

    • Characters created before Issue 16 will no longer need to change a costume piece in order for customized power changes to update
    • Adjusted tailor costs for powers customization changes.
    • The cost for changing each individual power’s theme is 1/9th the cost of changing your upper or lower body.
    • There is a Power Fee for changing powers customization. It is the same amount as the Tailor Fee for changing costume pieces.
    • Changing the primary or secondary color for a power charges 1/10th the Powers Fee for each power changed. This is only charged once per power, instead of once for each color.

The second biggie is the new power proliferation sets:

Archetype – Blasters 

  • Radiation Blast

Archetype – Brutes 

  • Claws

Archetype – Controllers 

  • Cold Domination

Archetype – Corruptors 

  • Archery
  • Trick Arrow

Archetype – Defenders 

  • Assault Rifle
  • Traps

Archetype – Dominators 

  • Earth Assault

Archetype -Masterminds 

  • Thermal Radiation

Archetype -Scrappers 

  • Electric Melee
  • Electric Armor

Archetype -Tankers 

  • Electric Melee
  • Electric Armor

Archetype -Stalkers 

  • Broadsword

Nice.

The full patch notes are here. Some noteworthy notes …

  • Lots of badge requirements reduced.
  • Improvements to the sidekicking system has removed the minimal entry level for most hazard zones.
  • “There is now an in-game email setting to block all email except from those on your friends list or in your supergroup.” HUZZAH!
  • More tweaking (nerfing) of experience for unbalanced custom opponents in the Mission Architect.
  • “All dismissable pets will now zone with you, but will lose their buffs.” HUZZAH!
  • Brawl now costs no Endurance. The intial origin powers cost reduced End.
  • Faster advancing (due to increased XP rewards) at levels 5-24. Which is … nice, but that’s not the area that most folks complain about, grind-wise.
  • The costume you log out in is what shows up on the character selection screen.

There’s a new Enhanced Difficulty System. I liked the old one, but regardless, this remains a good differentiator from CO. (On the other hand, in CO you an easily choose missions above your level). The difficulty settings are done via Hero Corps and Fateweavers, as before:

  • Choose to fight monsters between a -1 to +4 level difference from the player’s level.
  • Choose to set your personal team size (1-8).
  • Choose if you want bosses to scale down to Lieutenants when soloing or not
  • Choose to have AVs scale down to EBs.

The difficulty settings of the mission owner dictate how the mission is handled. Actual team size overrides any difficulty setting, so you will always get Arch-Villains if the team has 6 or more members. The difficulty setting is per task, so personal team member sizes do not add together.

There is also, as noted above, a new Sidekicking system. The main difference is that a single player can SK/Exemp as many (to a full team size of 8) as they want. No more fumbling around for a match of equal high/low toons.

    • Each player in the group’s level is set to the level of the owner of the active team task. If no team task is selected, everyone in the group’s level will be set to the level of the team leader.
    • When the team level changes, players will be notified via a dialog and have the option to quit the team or immediately accept. The dialog will time out after 30 seconds at which point acceptance is implied.
    • While in the pending state, players cannot receive rewards and any critters they damage will be worth no experience.
    • Players can choose to auto-accept team level changes 0 to 50 levels above or below their current level.
    • Exemplars will now earn XP and a level capped person will get XP converted into influence like exemplars used to.

Power-wise:

Blasters 

  • Radiation Blast – All AoE powers in this set will no longer give a damage bonus per target hit. Like other Blaster AoE powers, only a single damage buff will be granted per use of the power
  • Radiation Blast/Neutrino Bolt – This power now has a 4 second recharge, which increases base damage from scale 0.6 to scale 1.0 and increases endurance cost from 3.12 to 5.2
  • Radiation Blast/X-Ray Beam – This power now has an 8 second recharge, which increases base damage from scale 1.0 to scale 1.64 and increases endurance cost from 5.2 to 8.53
  • Electricity Manipulation – Power Sink: This power should no longer have a lingering icy effect on the caster.

Controllers 

  • Kinetics/Fulcrum Shift: This power will now correctly use Controller buff modifiers instead of Defender buff modifiers, resulting in a 20% damage buff per target and a 40% damage buff on self, instead of a 25% damage buff per target and a 50% damage buff on self.
  • Cold Domination: All of these powers should now accept the correct IO Sets.

Defenders 

  • Traps – Trip mine – Fixed repeating animation

Peacebringers and Warshades 

  • Players in White or Black Dwarf form will now play the updated version of the AlakazamReact emote

Scrappers 

  • Electric Melee – Removed the ability to slot powers within this set with Taunt enhancements as these powers do not have a taunt component.
  • Electric Armor – Lightning Field: Removed the ability to slot this power with Taunt enhancements as this power does not have a taunt component.
  • Electric Armor/ Power Sink: This power should no longer accept taunt enhancements.
  • Spines – Ripper: Removed extraneous sound effect from Barb Swipe.
  • Electric Melee – Chain Induction correctly jumps to additional targets when slotted with proc IOs.
  • Spines – Quills. The body spines will now appear when this toggle is activated. However, they will go away if the player enters and then exits spines combat mode while the toggle is on.

Tankers
 

  • Electric Armor – Lightning Field: This power will no longer accept Taunt IO sets to be consistent with other taunt auras.
  • Electric Melee – Chain Induction correctly jumps to additional targets when slotted with proc IOs.
  • Invulnerability – Invincibility no longer accepts Taunt IO sets. This makes it match similar powers available to other ATs.
  • Electric Melee – Fixed Gauntlet for Charged Brawl, Havoc Punch, and Chain induction to not allow procing on all nearby targets.

Brutes
 

  • Claws – Corrected a decimal shift error in the Recharge Time of Slash. Now recharges in 6.4 seconds, not 0.64 seconds.
  • Claws/Slash – Slightly increased this power’s damage to be in line with its recharge time
  • Claws – Eviscerate: Corrected this power\ss long help, it erroneously stated that this power had a chance to critically hit, which it does not
  • Claws – Powers in this set are now slottable for Taunt enhancements and Taunt IO sets.
  • Claws and Stone Armor are now mutually exclusive at character creation due to animation issues.
  • Electrical Melee – Jacob’s Ladder: Re-enabled FX for this power.
  • Electric Melee – Chain Induction correctly jumps to additional targets when slotted with proc IOs.

Corruptors
 

  • Archery/Rain of Arrows – This power will now correctly Scourge enemies allowing for critical hits on enemies with low health
  • Kinetics/Fulcrum Shift: This power will now correctly use Corruptor buff modifiers instead of Defender buff modifiers, resulting in a 20% damage buff per target and a 40% damage buff on self, instead of a 25% damage buff per target and a 50% damage buff on self.
  • Trick Arrow/Acid Arrow – Fixed a bug that caused this power to deal additional damage to immobilized, held, or disoriented targets
  • Pain Domination – Soothing Aura is properly suppressed when the recipient is mezzed.
  • Trick Arrow – Glue Arrow: This power’s ground based glue effect will no longer fade once the initial target is defeated, instead it will last its full intended duration.

Dominators
 

  • Earth Assault/Mud Pots – This power’s long help will no longer get cut off at the end
  • Earth Assault/Fissure – This power’s long help will no longer get cut off at the end
  • Earth Assault – Tremor, Slightly reduced chance of knockdown.
  • Earth Assault – Fissure, Adjusted damage, recharge, and endurance cost down moderately. Slightly reduced chance of knockdown and stun.
  • Earth Assault – Fissure: This power’s disorient effect is now enhanced by Domination.
  • Earth Assault – Seismic Smash – Corrected normal hold magnitude to 3, and the hold is now affected by Domination


Masterminds
 

  • Dark Miasma – Removed erroneous Jump Speed slow effect from Shadow Fall.
  • Mastermind Pets now correctly keep their level 6 and level 32 upgrade power buffs when zoning
  • Pets will now zone with their Mastermind owner and will keep their buffs
  • Necromancy – Zombies, Skeletons and Lich should use the selected custom colors for their enchanted and empowered particle effects.
  • Pain Domination – Soothing Aura is properly suppressed when the recipient is mezzed.
  • Thugs/Gang War now summons the Posse correctly
  • Trick Arrow – Glue Arrow: This power’s ground based glue effect will no longer fade once the initial target is defeated, instead it will last its full intended duration.

Soldiers of Arachnos and Widows
 

  • Mace Mastery – Focused Accuracy: This power was replaced with a new power called Shatter Armor.
  • Mace Mastery – Shatter Armor (NEW): This power has replaced Focused Accuracy in the Villain Epic Archetype Mace Mastery epic power set. Shatter Armor is a heavy hitting melee Arachnos Melee attack that reduces the target’s damage resistance.

Stalkers
 

  • Electric Melee – Chain Induction correctly jumps to additional targets when slotted with proc IOs.
  • Stalker Melee/Broad Sword/Head Splitter – Fixed a bug that caused this power to have a 100% chance to critically hit while hidden. This power will now critically hit 50% of the time

Let me just note with joy that Mastermind pets now zone.

The EPPs/VEAPS have been changed to have 5 powers instead of 4.

All in all, a very solid Issue, even if there’s no content to go with it. Well done, Paragon!

CO: New patch last night, details and commentary

Details on the patch that went in last night:

General
• Perks: Perk Cape Symbol Rewards: Fixed these rewards such that players cannot deconstruct them for parts or sell them to vendors once they have the unlocked symbol.
• Power Replace items sold by the Perk Vendor are now level 40. These items require the purchaser to be level 40 as well.
• Added some performance fixes to counteract some of the changes from last night’s patch.
• Fix for one of the major stalls while moving around.
• Fixed a crash some users were experiencing loading into the game with ATI graphics cards.
• We’ve added a number of performance improvements to Supergroups. Supergroup commands should be much more responsive now.

User Interface and Chat
• Large powers and advantages UIs are now movable.
• Fixed-position UIs and large window UIs no longer close each other (large window UIs DO still close other large window UIs).

I believe that means that you can have your character’s attribute list or power list open and still open the Powerhouse Trainer window. If so, excellent.

• Added search button to social UI.
• Map itself now takes up larger portion of the large map UI.

Good.

• Main map UI now can be shrunk a bit more.
• Integrated overflow bag into inventory and experiment UIs.

I’m not sure what that is, but it sounds promising.

• Many user-facing messages (in chat, etc.) have been reviewed/improved for grammar/consistency/brevity/clarity.
• Fixed a bug that prevented players with an @ in the account name from logging in from the game login screen.
• Changed the label on the remember account name check box to show Account Name instead of Username.
• Added “report spam” button to mail UI.

*sigh*

• Emanation points dropdowns now take up less space unless hovered.
• Builds UI now has powers in the same order as the main power tray.

Thank you. That’s caused some confusion (and inadvertent purchases) in the past.

• Guild UI now obeys guild offline check when first opened.
• Minimap locations dropdown now shows your crafting school type (or doesn’t show that option if you have none); also sized to fit correctly in all languages.

YES! WOOT! EXCELLENT! (It’s about time.)

Wait, does that mean you can see what your crafting school is? Or that you can filter out crafters that aren’t of that type? Hopefully both.

Powers
• Toned down the loud jetboots audio.

Good. I respecced an early character because of that.

• Ice: Ice Cage (and all Ice powers that apply Ice Cage): Fixed a bug that allowed the root to be stacked many times on a single target. The root should now only be able to be placed once on a target at any given time.
• Ice: Wall of Ice: Frozen Footsteps advantage: Fixed 2 separate bugs: Players now actually have to move (as the description says) for the path to be formed. Also made it so individual critters can only be affected by the path once, so you can’t get 4 or 5 Ice Explosions on a single target.
• Telepathy: Mindful Reinforcement: Revitalizing Boost should now actually give energy when it is triggered, instead of giving zero energy.
• Telepathy: Mindful Reinforcement: Ranks 2 and 3 should properly absorb damage now.

Missions/Environments
• Critter: Gadroon: Instant “thunderclap” PBAoE used by Adjudicator and Slavemaster can no longer hold players.
• Critter: Gadroon: Adjudicator now uses Melee AI.
• Critter: Gadroon: Gravatic Shaper and Invasion Leader now have a basic attack to use while their schtick attacks are on cooldown.
• Critter: Gadroon: Gravatic Shaper’s Containment Field now has a overhead schtick tell.
• Critter: Gadroon: Lancer and Terrafromer’s Gravatic Rift now snares instead of pulls.
• Critter: Gadroon: Lancer and Terraformer’s Gravatic Rift now does less damage.
• Critter: Gadroon: Lancer and Terraformer’s Gravatic Lance (basic attack) now correctly displays FX.
• Critter: Gadroon: Lancer and Terraformer’s Gravatic Lance (basic attack) no longer penetrates defenses.
• Critter: Gadroon: Fixed art timing on Gravatic Bolt (basic attack) used by many Gadroon.
• Critter: Gadroon: Gravatic Initiate now less likely to use its charge up hold power.
• Critter: Gadroon: Gravatic Initiate’s hold now correctly displays FX.
• Gadroon: Terraforming Spire’s Toxic Gas now properly snares instead of holds, and does 90% less damage.

Desert
• Nadir of the Invaders: Increased timer for open mission to 10 minutes to prevent exploit.
• Asciing for Trouble: Increased timer for open mission to 10 minutes to prevent exploit.
• Hang ‘Em High: Increased timer for open mission to 10 minutes to prevent exploit.
Canadian Wilderness

On the plus side, huzzah for no exploit. On the minus side, if you miss it, you have to hang around (or find something else to do) for 10 minutes. Yawn.

• Undead on Arrival: Increased timer for open mission to 10 minutes to prevent exploit.
• Reign of Frogs: Increased timer for open mission to 10 minutes to prevent exploit.
• Hunters Hunting: Fixed issue where Hunter-Patriot Lts. were unkillable if players were not on the mission to interrogate them.
• Hyperborean Woodland Warding: Fixed issue where Maj. Hendges would not interact with players. Maj. Hendges now gives the patrol mission “Hyperborean Woodland Warding” which takes the place of the mission which existed there previously: Echo Escort.

Millennium City
• A Bullet Bound For Biselle: Increased timer for open mission to 10 minutes to prevent exploit.
• A Bullet Bound For Biselle: Found and fixed the issue where the mayor could miss an FSM trasition causing him to not run away and despawn when a mission fails. This should allow the mission to properly reset after the mission failed.
• Jail Break: Increased timer for open mission to 10 minutes to prevent exploit.
• Repaired a badly offset patrol mission door that was not allowing people to access it.
• My Lost Foot: Fixed a bug that could cause Xiress to despawn, causing players to be unable to find her.
• Destroids Rise Again: Fixed a bug that could cause the Mega-Destroid not to despawn when the mission ends if it is in combat.
• Destroids Rise Again: Increased the number of rescues required for the first stage of the open mission (to give more players a chance to show up). Increased the cooldown of the mission to 90 minutes.
• Destroids Rise Again: Fixed a bug that caused Destroids guarding the Retribution Devices not to attack.
• Waterfront Watcher: Fixed a bug that could cause James Harmon to freeze and prevent players from interacting with him.

Monster Island
• Great Barrier Grief: Increased timer for open mission to 10 minutes to prevent exploit.
• Crisis on Monster Island: Removed a level restriction on the Monster Island Crisis queue. This should have no game effect, since the level restriction on the mission and the level restriction on the queue were the same.

Lemuria
• Plunder the Sea: Increased timer for open mission to 10 minutes to prevent exploit.
• Ship of Fouls: Increased timer for open mission to 10 minutes to prevent exploit.
• Crisis in Lemuria: Fixed a bug that could prevent level 31 players with the Crisis missions from not being able to join the queue even if they had the correct mission.

Nemesis
• Added VO to The Drifter in the Nemesis Gold Mine mini.

Crafting
• Crafting UI now sorts by level as the default (instead of by slot).

Not sure where that applies, but it sounds useful.

Costume Creator/Tailor
• The Tailor now uses the correct texture to indicate an inconsistent randomize lock state.
• Fixed a bug where unlocking a new Pattern would show the material name, instead of the pattern name.
• Fixed a bug where the list of unlocked costume parts would only indicate that it was available for one side, when it was available for both.

Hero Games
• Changed the Stronghold HUD and final scoreboards to display NPC heroes/villains defeated rather than total opponents defeated. Previously, the HUD had been tracking total kills, and it counted destroyed objects as kills. Now it doesn’t care about objects or henchmen NPCs.
• Hero Games Store: Fixed a bug where purchasing the basic Luchador Costume in the Hero Games store would only unlock one mask. It will now unlock all four Luchador masks.
• Hero Games: Volatile perk: Fixed a bug that caused players not to receive credit for the Volatile perk on the High-Tech arena map.

So no biggies (per current complaints) clearly they’re working on stuff.

Heroic Tweets for 2009-09-14

  • Psiclone has completed Vanquished Rakshasa #
  • Champions Online : First Impressions – MMORPG.COM http://bit.ly/wz5nF – Pretty critical drubbing due to Day 1 Nerf, respec costs, confusion. #
  • The Digital Continuum: #champs launch edition – Massively http://bit.ly/10V1K6 – Chatting on the Nerf, soloability, and dearth of missions. #
  • Psiclone has reached level 10! #
  • Comparison of Passive Defenses? – #Champs Forums http://bit.ly/iUBXR – Good stuff; some interesting ads/disads to each one. #

Heroic Tweets for 2009-09-13

  • Zebra has completed Open Mission: Hang 'em High #
  • Zebra has completed Vanquished Talisman #
  • Zebra has completed Vanquished Leech #
  • RT @Positron_CoH I have been officially diagnosed with h1n1, and poss. bronchitis. I do not wish this on anyone. #coh [Get well soon!] #
  • Adding Margie's toons to the Twitter posting. Meaningless to others, but fun for us. #
  • Star Warrior has completed Vanquished Rakshasa #
  • Honeygun has reached level 10! #
  • Weapon Replacer Pics – #champs Forums http://bit.ly/146NX6 – Different gunslinger/munitions weapon choices. #
  • Munitions Explained: All About the Guns – #champs Forums http://bit.ly/12KA1A – Very solid forum guide, discussion of Munitions. #
  • RT Cryptic_DaekeLooking like we'll be doing an emergency patch tonight to prevent today's server crash from occurring again. #champs #
  • So it seems that new #champs social settings are throttling Twitter posts. Honeygun / Star Warrior duo only generated those two Tweets. #

It’s all a matter of perspective

So this morning, whilst showering and having pre-church coffee, Margie was regaling me with her thoughts on CO (which were the foundation of the lengthy post I did this afternoon). 

After about, oh, half an hour of various gripes and complaints, I was feeling more than a bit tense. I realize (in retrospect) that it was because I felt like (a) I had gotten her into CO, and (b) she wasn’t having a good time, thus (c) I was responsible for her being unhappy. That she was going on and on about it simply made me feel like I was being righteously scolded for my iniquities (I can say “iniquities’ because it was, as I mentioned, pre-church).

I actually did voice my concerns and unhappiness over same, and was, in turn, reassured that, despite her various complaints, she was still having fun and that there were a lot of good things about CO, and that, really, her main complaints were (a) it could be so much better, (b) she felt like she didn’t know what she felt she needed to know, and (c) kill-stealing / spawn-stealing seriously sucks and any game that allows it deserves whatever opprobrium it gets. (I inferred the last item).

On reflection — and it didn’t take much reflection — her various gripes and griefs and suggestions re CO were, in fact, very well taken. They were also proportional — there’s a recognition that some things are Very Bad, and other things are just Mildly Annoying. And the fact is, once I stopped feeling all defensive about it, I agreed with nearly everything she said.

hindenbergWhat seriously put it into perspective, though, was some skimming through the forums this evening. Oh. My. God. You’d think that Bill Roper and the various CO Devs were personally spitting on each person’s mother’s grave, and also selling their sisters down to Rio. “Game is screwed – quitting now.” “One last shot for CO to prove me wrong.” “30 minute Retcon grace period or i cancel my account.” “This sucks.” “Nerf is WRONG, WRONG, WRONG.” Etc.

In many cases, the complaints boiled down to, “I want a character that can do X, Y, and Z, and they are not letting me have that.” Some such criticisms were valid concerns, but most were akin (in style, and usually in substance) to kids screaming incoherently about candy not granted or toys not bought. And very, very few of them had any perspective viz where CO is in its life cycle, how most MMOs look and feel, and how game balance works.

Compared to which, Margie’s critiques are positively the Roger Ebert of reasoned, enlightened, perspicacious, insightful observations. She makes cogent comments that don’t involve invocations of DOOOOM! or assumptions that the Devs are out to rob her, personally, of having any fun. And she’s also quick to note the things she likes, too.

It’s all a matter of perspective.

CO: I’m back in the Hollows again

There’s a lot of Champs Online criticism below. It’s leavened by some positives at the end, but it comes from a few days of fairly intense play (mostly on Margie’s part), and a variety of frustrations.

 

Once upon a time … before zone remixes, and early travel powers, and early radio contact with  contact, and police band missions, and a variety of content …

,,, The Hollows was the bane of CoX experience. A huge zone. Missions assigned willy-nilly across the whole map. Endless nasty mobs that you had to run past or dodge around. And no hospitals in the zone — you die, you go back to Atlas. No trainer in the park — how many groups lost all their momentum (and often members) because people had to run back to Atlas for leveling — “GTL BRB.” No stores in the zone, either.

And it was the only game in town. From 6 to 15 or so, that’s where you had to go, sooner or later. Yeah, there was some Kings Row stuff, and if you really were desperate you could go into Perez (which was where all the I1-3 content for that level was — The Hollows was a late addition).

There’s a reason why the Chamber of Transcendence was the epitome of the Hollows — hard to get to, lots of mobs, a pain in the bitch of you get killed (or need to level) …

There’s also a reason I don’t go to the Hollows much any more, even though it’s been much improved as a level,

Champions Online feels, sometimes, like I’m stuck in the Hollows. At least in the Canada / Desert zones. Huge zones, Missions scattered around. Contacts that you always have to go back to. If you need to level, sell, or craft, you have to go all the way back to the beginning of the zone. Dying (respawn points) aren’t as bad, but it’s still annoying.

Part of this is travel power selection. Flyers and TP are pretty much golden, though they miss some of the ground content and “treasure” — and there are AA guns in some areas. But Superspeed, Acrobatics, and even Superjump are problematic — especially since even just being aggroed will immediately slow you down (and draw fire for seemingly 30 seconds, even if you break LoS).

(Irradiates plasma bolts remind me of the old-style ToS Romulan fireballs — faster than you and unevadable.)

Much of this is due to the relative immaturity of the game, sure. There’s a lack of content, and the Devs are still tuning the XP curve and how aggro works and all. I’m sure that, in the future, we’ll probably be able to call contacts (realistic), and pick up mission rewards (um, okay, that would be unrealistic). We’ll know about the best paths through the terrain, the relatively safe points — using meta-knowledge to counter lack of world immersion.

But it’s still annoying.

 

I hate inventory issues. No, really.

And CO has them. Not a lot of them immediately, but we started to see it last night. 

You have basically three sets of things in your inventory: 

  1. Widgets / power-ups. Some of these you use, in which case you swap them for something else in your tray, which doesn’t help the overall inventory problem. The rest you either sell (if not of your craft school) or deconstruct (if they are). You might also auction them, but we haven’t started doing auction stuff yet. That means these things do, with regular maintenance, get taken care of.
  2. Resources / raw materials. These are used for crafting, so it’s unlikely you’re going to use them up as fast. They become a real problem as you advance in crafting tiers, and suddenly open up new types of raw materials. There may be a more efficient way of dealing with them, but at present they aren’t too bad.
  3. Mission items. These are the real PitAs. They can fill your tray in nothing flat — and sometimes they end up staying there. (Do I ever really need the Key to the City? Like, ever? Inquiring minds want to know and/or clear their inventory). Given that you can stack several missions and be working on different ones, it’s irksome — especially with missions that involve several items (e.g., four different keycards takes up almost 15% of your inventory right there).

I’ve gotten past being irked about how you have to handle drops (wait, there’s a bang! no, that’s yours. wait, I opened it up, but then forgot to choose Take all …) I just find the growing inventory problems a pain.

My solution: Treat mission objects separately. They simply exist.

Another solution: Treat resources separately. I mean, my guy isn’t really carrying around a locker full of Argent Arms on his back. We assume they exist in katanaspace, and move on.

Another solution: More places where you can sell stuff.

Ironically enough, the one place that you don’t run into inventory problems is with stacking of stuff, e.g., heal patches. Except, when they are down in your actual “usage” tray, you can’t see how many you have. Rrg.

 

Other gripes:

  • There’s a lot of interesting “read this” content … Viper plans you run across, taunting letters from mysterious enemies, arcane tomes stashed here and there, etc. Unfortunately, those items stay “stuck” wherever they are; read them while you are standing there (hopefully not in an area where bad guys are about to respawn). That’s both silly and a lost chance for immersion. 
  • Is anyone taking active use of the “multi-build” capabilities? I’m not — it’s all I can do to track what I have and can do, let alone creating specialty versions with different powers available. 
  • A group of -5 cons should not be able to take me down. Or even slow me down. If i can’t get XP for them, I should not be be in danger or affected by them. Or, conversely, if they are a risk, I should get XP.
  • The current XP curve is wonky. Characters are ending Canada and Desert content around levels 12-13 … but MC is really designed for 14 and above. And you can’t just go out at that point and punch out some baddies — they’re all conning so low that the XP is worthless. So I’m finding myself taking maxxed-out chars in one place and hopping over to the other to grab a few more missions in the hinterlands.

 

All that said, it’s clear that CO’s biggest “problem” is that it is an immature MMO. There is nothing fundamentally wrong here that can’t be fixed by time and tweaks — as demonstrated by CoX having overcome most of this stuff. Which begs the issue of, aside from volume of content, why should the CO devs have to relearn some of those lessons that CoX already lived through.

There are still a lot of positive that get lost in the above. The gameplay is fun. The travel powers are cool. Things could just be better than they are. Being able to be a totally custom framework character is very, very cool. But the learning curve remains high, and the documentation remains scanty. As Margie puts it, she feels “inefficient.”

An example problem — I was agonizing over a power to take last night. I finally took one. Um … hey, what happened to it? Wasn’t it supposed to show up there? Ah, it’s a slotted passive power. And I already have one. Um … then why was it being offered to me? Oh, I could slot it in a different build. Hrm. Okay. A warning that, “Hey, dummy, you already have one, so you can’t have another in your currently active build” would have been nice. For that matter, realizing that I was going to be offered one later on would have been nice, too. I suppose I could use my freespec on the character to fix that (the button is finally there), but I’m not sure I want to.

Meanwhile, Margie discovered that she had a slotted passive power that hadn’t gotten slottted. So she was operating at a disadvantage for the last couple of sessions of gameplay. Irritating.

I like it that the sound quality in certain settings changes — sounds (powers, etc.) start to echo. I like the number of objects that can be affected. I like the animation and art style, still.

Interestingly, for a character who’s traditionally been (in CoX) a Controller/Defender, or sometimes a Blaster, I’m finding myself most enjoying melee characters that just hop in and start wailing.

I like that there is a dedicated “T” key to toggle on Travel powers. I don’t like that my toons keep getting bugged back to CO button layouts (using C1-5 for the usage items) rather than the “Other Super-hero Games” (snort) (using F1-5).

Margie says: “I don’t think it will replace City of Heroes for me — but that’s okay. And it will take a while for me to get tired of picking up Humvees and throwing them.”

That’s not a bad place to be a couple of weeks post-game start.