Unheroic

The weekend was kind of minimally CoHy after the Faathim game … Saturday night was our church dinner party, Sunday I was traveling (and got into the hotel late).
Did play a short bit Sunday afternoon with the Azures, which was, as always, fun.
Despite lack of Stamina and having a non-stop attack chain, Mr. A’s endurance never budges (even with Sprint on). Of course, that’s a bit deceptive, since, as a Regen A big part of that is, with Regen, he’s got Quick Recovery. Another part is that he doesn’t have an toggles running (so far) — that changes next level).
But he’s a pretty decent scrapper, and Mrs. A’s support Mind Control is damned nice, too. They are, in many ways, the flip side of PC/A. An enjoyable pair to play.

Faathim the Kind

Ran the Faathim Saga (Shadow Shard #3, I believe) tonight. Took much less time than expected — we started rolling aorund 8, and were done by a bit after Midnight.
A lot of the TF is “defeat 50 X in Shard Zone Y,” which wasn’t all that exciting. There were a few “regular” missions.
The climactic battle was … well, not all that challenging.
On the other hand, it was a great group — Shock.Therapy, Hyperthermian, Psi-clone, Amorpha, Puck Bunny, Li Nakamura, Kinetica, Kessa. Any time spent with that group is well worth it — and when we encountered resistance, we blew through it.
PC and A both dinged 48. No more sidekicking! Since we were 47 and we had 50s in the group, most of the opposition were purple and red, which helped the XP gain for us.
And, for the record — Fly is definitely the way to go in the Shard. (Recall Friend was pretty damned useful, too.)
A nice evening.

Buy low, sell high

Today’s trivia item:

  1. To buy a level 45 SO Healing from Crimson (a normal contact on PI) costs 108K. To buy it from Ghost Falcon (the “store” contact on PI) costs only 54K, a 50% savings. Buying from GF makes sense.
  2. Selling a level 53 SO EndRed to Ghost Falcon will net you 14.5K. Selling the same SO to a “real” store on Talos will net you 22.3K, a 50% (or so) benefit. Selling to GF makes no sense. (Unless, of course, you count in the marginal convenience factor — you can sell everything to GF, but going from him to, say, 3 stores on Talos, will take you an extra 5 minutes or so).

FYI.

Diverse Hands II

Continued on with the odd mash-ups between heroes and villains. Lynn Calodo and Kazima joined up with some folks for the Hero/Villain quests (Lynn dinged, Kazima dinged shorly thereafter), then later, over on Virtue, Honor the Flag and Copper Mountain joined in (Honor dinged once, Copper dinged twice).
I’m not all that devoted to the badges, but the gameplay is always good fun.
I need, though, to make a point this afternoon of getting everyone logged in long enough to get the Heart of Xness badge and the toga piece (though very few folks I have, if any, will ever go for the toga thing — well, maybe Velvet). Not sure who, if anyone, I want to still run through the Valentines stories. Torchy, probably, and maybe Velvet. Possibliy Eliza Dee, just because I miss playing her. Heck, we should probably see if we can push the Azures through (“You’re ‘Beautiful,’ darling.” “You’re ‘Beautiful,’ too, dear.”).
The disads of so many alts is coming back to bite us. Though, to be honest, if I *don’t* run those mishes any more, I think that would be fine. It’s the teaming and gameplay on them I’m enjoying, not (once again) going through an incredibly laggy Arachos set.
Honor continues to proceed apace, development-wise. I discovered that she’s still not able to tank a half-dozen orange Arachnos types. Getting better, though, and I seem to have stabilized my endurance needs, even with Energy Melee consumption.
Lynn — is now tied for 4th highest character in my stable, which is mildly alarming. (Though Margie’s soloist, Blue Point, is now tied for second in hers.) It was kind of cool Lynn ending up as one of the more powerful characters in the Valentines group (even when we were facing the right level of baddies). I had some fun playing her, too.
She’s joined up in the new “Nexus Program” (the revised Allies of the Alliance). We’ll see how that goes. In related news, I’ve dropped the (briefly joined) “OOC RP” chat channel, given some folks who’ve subsequently migrated to it. Still finding the “Alliance OOC” to be a lot of fun and meeting my OOC needs.
And briefly got on as PC to get the CoJ tied into the Nexus and the Longbow Elite. It will be interesting to see how (or if) that latter group stays tied to the Alliance, and how each will affect the other.

Diverse hands

Tried to continue the Snap missions last night with Christmas Present and Mr. Ravenous, but, even dialed down to Villainous, still had major problems. The spectrals were smash resistant, and their and the arrow-slinger debuffs were slowing our attacks even further.
Got a request from Doyce for a Virtue hero to assist in similar efforts. Ended up with, instead, him and Ana and Jackie and BD and Sword joining us. Much, much fun — a good group to run with, both playwise and banter-wise.
Mr. R dinged to 14, so … travel power! Huzzah!
Reorganized after that arc was finished to a similar team (only with, for us, Fazenda and Araware) to do the Ganymede missions again. Which made (with Pizzaz) two Emp/Nrg Defenders, which was kind of fun (as took turns being the first by a half-second to do targeted or area heals).
Again, good banter, fun times.
Nice evening. It’s actually been kind of fun doing stuff with a variety of different characters (both ours and others). We’ll be finally getting back to Psi-clone/Amorpha this weekend, but it’s been kind of nice taking a break.
For the record (and for anyone who is confused, which sounds to be many from chatter):

  1. Any toon that signs on in the Valentines time frame will get the Heart of Xness badge and the toga costume part.
  2. There are various exclusive badges available in the various PocketD missions during this period — the Hero/Villain missions, for example, are exclusively in this period. Not sure if that’s true for the DJ Zero mission.
  3. If you give someone your CoV trial code and they then upgrade to a real account in the timeframe, then you (and they) will also get the laurel wreath and sandals costume pieces.

Graphic results

So Margie was having ongoing problems with the graphics on her machine, even after the card was replaced. Strange texture flashing and invisible buildings and other oddities.
Many mutters about CoX graphic tweaks and searching and cursing ensues for some weeks.
Finally, I suggest, “Hey, I just saw another mention of that ‘-useTexEnvCombine’ tweak — let me install it on your machine.”
Margie, desperate, agreed.
So while she was upstairs kissing Kitten good night, I opened up the shortcut …
… and saw it was already there.
And … um … realized I had put it in after her card went south and we were trying to run it on the native onboard graphics. And I realized …
… that was probably causing the problem now.
I never even thought of claiming I’d “fixed” it when I took the switch out.
I was just glad to see Margie’s graphics back to normal. 🙂

Valentine’s Day

Well, once our yummy dinner was done, we hopped on …
… well, that was after I’d commented to Margie that it was about this time last year that I’d roped her in persuaded her that playing CoH might be fun … and that we’d been doing it for a year now … and, damn, it’s been fun doing it with her.
Enough soppy stuff.
… and, of course, we had to play Mr. and Mrs. Azure a bit. Always fun, even if CC is a bit less chattery than before.
After that, we decided we’d do some Pocket D stuff. Mr. Ravenous from the villain side, Christmas Present from the heroes.
Well, the hero side (with Ravenous gimped down to 10) went okay. Actually, it went swimmingly. We tore through Council/Arachnos like knives through butter.
Then we went to the villain missions (with CP SKed to 12).
Yikes.
First off, CP being down a level didn’t help. Especially since everything was yellow and orange for me.
My being on … well the second level of reputation difficulty (“Zillions of ’em, Mr. Rico!”) didn’t help, either.
So we fought huge gobs of folks and barely survived even with the Drops of goodness from the bartenders. And that was just the first mob. The second was bad, too. The third —
— well, somewhere in there, we both died. And we decided, since it was latish and I really needed to reset to simple “Villainous,” we’d call it an evening.
So, out with a whimper. But still a fun evening.

Munch

Last night was Monday Munchies. We had a team of 7-8 most of the evening, and did passably well. Aside from one near-TPK, in fact, the missions went pretty smoothly (at least as far as my tank was concerned). We suffered significantly more casualties traveling through the Hollows to our missions than otherwise. Hrm.
No Controllers, which, in a group that size, is odd.
Ho Ho‘s attack chain started getting wonky mid-evening, which I eventually realized was because my temp lowbie power had gone away, leaving me with two slow axe chops and Brawl. Battleaxe does some nice damage (and amazing knockdown/back), but it’s sloooooow (and endurance sucking). I was toying with using my next level for another attack, but I think I’m going to stick with Taunt (control!) and maybe slot some recharge speeds instead.
In other news, Lynn is a desperately short distance away from dinging 22. She’s running in Striga at the moment. After some painstaking and difficult soloing of the first ship mission, she got pulled into a PUG of 8 on the same mission, which was basically a non-stop wading through Council (and which netted much XP).
Still need to get her into the new Alliance “Allies” group.
And did some brief before-sending-Margie-to-bed Ravenous/Charity, noodging closer to 14 and travel powers. Just too damned fun.

Multitasking

Interesting study out on how video gaming helps train the brain to better multitask:

A body of research suggests that playing video games provides benefits similar to bilingualism in exercising the mind. Just as people fluent in two languages learn to suppress one language while speaking the other, so too are gamers adept at shutting out distractions to swiftly switch attention between different tasks.
A new study of 100 university undergraduates in Toronto has found that video gamers consistently outperform their non-playing peers in a series of tricky mental tests. If they also happened to be bilingual, they were unbeatable.
“The people who were video game players were better and faster performers,” said psychologist Ellen Bialystok, a research professor at York University. “Those who were bilingual and video game addicts scored best — particularly at the most difficult tasks.”

See? All this CoH/CoV play is just to train my brain! It’s good for me!

I am not an animal! Well, actually …

Spent a goodly amount of time this weekend continuing to march Mr. Ravenous and Charity at Home up to travel powers (14) and SF eligibility (15). Marched them all the way up to 13, in fact, which was quite nice.
The two of them are going like gangbusters. Charity contributes shields and heals, backed up with some nice debuffing attacks, while Mr. R. takes the baddies apart. I took Dull Pain at 12 and have hit it only once since then. Biggest problem I have at the moment, besides desperately needing Stamina, is status protection — stuns from RIP billy clubs and knockdown/back from shotguns. I need to carry more purples, but beyond that …
… well, I realize I keep trying to design Mr. R. as a Tank, which he’s not. He’s not even a Scrapper. He’s a Brute. So defensive powers (the Invuln side of things) needs to take second place to More Attacks. Except, at the moment, I’m stuck in the drive to travel powers and Stamina — plus Unyielding, to deal with those status issues — which means I can’t take another attack until 22, which just sucks.
Here’s what I have (planned thru 44) for him so far:

Exported from version 1.5C of CoH Planner
http://joechott.com/coh
Archetype: Brute
Primary Powers – Ranged : Super Strength
Secondary Powers – Support : Invulnerability
01 : Resist Physical Damage damres(01)
01 : Jab acc(01) dam(3) acc(7) dam(17) endred(17) dam(31)
02 : Punch acc(02) dam(3) acc(5) dam(11) endred(15) dam(27)
04 : Temp Invulnerability damres(04) damres(5) damres(7) endred(9) endred(15) endred(34)
06 : Swift runspd(06)
08 : Haymaker acc(08) dam(9) acc(11) dam(23) endred(23) dam(27)
10 : Combat Jumping endred(10)
12 : Dull Pain recred(12) recred(13) recred(13) hel(31) hel(33) hel(33)
14 : Super Jump endred(14) jmp(34) jmp(36) jmp(36)
16 : Unyielding endred(16) damres(37) damres(40) damres(40)
18 : Health hel(18) hel(19) hel(19)
20 : Stamina endrec(20) endrec(21) endrec(21)
22 : Knockout Blow acc(22) acc(25) dam(25) dam(36) dam(37)
24 : Taunt recred(24) rng(37)
26 : Rage recred(26) recred(46) recred(46)
28 : Invincibility endred(28) defbuf(29) defbuf(29) endred(31) thtbuf(33) thtbuf(34)
30 : Resist Elements damres(30)
32 : Resist Energies damres(32)
35 : Hurdle jmp(35)
38 : Unstoppable damres(38) recred(39) recred(39) recred(39) damres(40) damres(43)
41 : Foot Stomp acc(41) acc(42) endred(42) dam(42) dam(43) endred(43)
44 : Hurl acc(44) acc(45) dam(45) dam(45) dam(46)

The 40-plus stuff is provisional to whatever the Epic powers turn out to be for Brutes.
I’d love to get Knockout Blow earlier, but just can’t see where to fit it in.

Slog between dimensions

Ran the Hero-side Pocket-D missions last night (starting a scosh late) with Amorpha, Mister Thorne, and BD’s Gasta Bas.
Death rode on our shoulders the entire way, and, unfortunately, was as busy pecking on our ears as anyone else’s.
Problems we had:

  1. There were three of us. Unbalanced. And because we’d started on Amorpha’s mission set, the only thing we could do is SK Mr. Thorne to her, and leave Gasta to hang back and spam heals. And, oh, yeah, die a lot from various Arachnos AoE and cone attacks.
  2. Mr. Thorne is way too squishy for all the aggro he draws.
  3. Though fighting at level 47, Mr. Thorne lacked the powers that would come between where he is (17) and there, including some added firepower for the Mercs and better buffs for his team. As a result, his contribution to combat was pitiful — mostly distractions and horribly slow healing.
    So … tired … of that build.

  4. Amorpha had serious “invis” problems from the bad guys, which didn’t help her combat abilities any.

So the standard order of combat in the Arachnos part of the mission arc was …
… We suddenly realize GB has been taken down, along with one or two of the boys.
… The rest of the boys go down faster than I can recreate them.
… Mister Thorne goes down.
… Amorpha survives about half the time.
Mercifully, PocketD has its own healing areas, and plenty of chicklets to buy. It also has some super-buffs to sell, though they didn’t seem to help as much as we needed.
*sigh* Finished around 11. Thorne had dinged, Amorpha had gone up a pip, GB was still in debt.
Still have the villain mishes to do — and Amorpha’s already observed that 11 of her powers go “grey” when she exemps down to our level. Should be entertaining.

Stuff, briefly

Hostess Heroes last night. The Hollows turned out to be a bit more problematic than I thought, for a variety of reasons:

  • Full team meant any delays, problems, etc., had more impact. A couple of drops by folks added to this.
  • Real Life issues (like getting Kitten to bed, and others for others) meant a lot of standing around waiting.
  • More bodies than team slots meant in-game reshuffling and more waiting.
  • Early interruption due to other plans/commitments/fatigue.
  • Despite having some very intelligent and experienced players, way too much “Hey, let me take the short-cut through Grendel Gulch with my Level 8 character” goings-on, exacerbated by missions that were (literally) all over the map.
  • A broad range of character levels (6-10, I think) means running something above Heroic is likely to lead to problems.

That said, it was still a lot of fun, and even those bits didn’t take much away from that. A good evening.

The more things change …

2006-02-04_charity-ravenous.jpgWent ahead and brought Mister Ravenous and Charity at Home over from Virtue to Champion (and the CoI). It’s the third time I’ve done this (I believe I’d originally built him on Champion), but no regrets.
A solid evening of play got us both up to about 8.5. We ran through the Burke path, rather than Kalinda, which made it a bit fresher.
The pair of them work together, and playing a brute just remains plain fun. The comm chatter with them is pretty enjoyable, too.
I look forward to doing more with them and with the CoI.

Best toon seen of late

Ran the other day with “Inside-Out Boy.”
Smallish figure, using one of the alien or chitinous or some other sort of rough-textured exteriors, all in red and pink. With veins …
… and he was a Spines scrapper, of course, so he looked even more messed up then.
Would never want to run him, to be honest, but it was very, very nicely done.

Characters in review

HEROES

  • 46 – Psi-clone: Momentum went down a bit this week, between various other distractions, but still on track toward 50. Posted something for him related to the Great Schism which drew a few kudos from folks.
  • 31 – Velvet Jones: No activity this week. Mainly pulling her out for Phalanx Prestige Days, which is fine. Did some comparative stats with Stateswoman, who hasn’t EDed herself yet.
  • 22 – Torchielle: No gameplay, but thinking a lot about her. I may throw her into an online story that’s starting up. And I’d like to focus mor eon her in the future.
  • 21 – Lynn Calodo: No activity. Trying to decide whether to keep her in the erstwhile Allies (which feels vaguely uncomfortable) or pull her into the as-yet-undefined new allies group. Did post a story about her a week or two ago, giving her thoughts on some changes in her life.
  • 17 – Fazenda: Much fun the other day during Knights Night. As is obvious, I like Empathy characters, and she does a nice energy attack, too. I’ve seen a good half-dozen references to EMP/NRG Defenders in the last week or so, so obviously it’s a popular build. And she’s fun to play.
  • 15 – Mr. Azure: No gameplay. Not sure what’s going on there.
  • 14 – Amethyst Crown: No gameplay. Fun to solo, but I still sort of feel like Margie’s Blue Point has taken over the BS/Reg franchise in the family.
  • 10 – Big Lungs: No gameplay. I keep thinking I’mg going to scrap her, but I like the way she looks (other than that, silly), and she’s good for teaming. Prognosis uncertain.
  • 10 – Honor the Flag: Heavy solo play. Doing well. Keeps running out of breath, but fun and teamable.
  • 09 – Al McGordo: No activity. Still like him. Not sure when I’ll get back to him. Margie’s HH is a Rad/Rad, too, so I don’t know if that will obsolete him in mindshare or make her realize how much fun I have iwth him.
  • 09 – Fr. Frank: Another soloing character for teams. The Zen of Healbotness. Haven’t gotten a voice for him, but I like the way he looks and behaves.
  • 08 – Ho Ho: Too much fun. I really hope folks don’t take /petitionable offense, because she’s great. Looking forward to running her on Mondays.

VILLAINS

  • 17 – Mister Thorne: A fair amount of gameplay, duoed and on teams. Definitley keeping him around, for various RP reasons, but I don’t expect much gameplay beyond “we need a level 17 CoV character for this activity” sort of thing.
  • 14 – Eliza Dee: No activity. Shame, because I like her, but I’m not enjoying soloing (esp. the Elitists being defunct).
  • 11 – Mister Ravenous: Too much fun, too long neglected. I plan on porting him over to Champions and the CoI soon.
  • 10 – Eliza Dee: See above. I’d like to do more with her duoing with Mistress Bacchante.
  • 06 – Major Morena: Meh. An experiment that’s not likely to go anywhere. May drop her off the active list and into the “vast pile of experimental alts I have sitting out there.”

Evil intent

Did a fair amount of inconclusive running about with Honor the Flag (ding ding) and Fr. Frank (ding) yesterday afternoon while Margie was at the office, then in the evening ended up joining in a big CoI confab — three missions, I believe, all told.
Fun group, esp. a combo of new players (relatively speaking) and old. Dinged a level with Mr. Thorne and Undone to 17.
And … Margie and I realized we just weren’t having any fun with the characters per se. Fun group, and fun concepts, but I find Mr Thorne ponderous to maneuver in battle, and Margie finds Undone too squishy in a group setting.
So seriously considering re-rolling Mister Ravenous and Charity at Home over onto Champions and into the CoI (they were originally rolled up for the Elitists on Virtue). That means tossing away 11 levels or so, but I think it would be worth it. Actually, I just want to run a Brute (so Eliza Dee would do), but Mr. R is way too much fun.
We’ll see how it goes, timewise. Still have plenty to in Paragon, too.