So the alt I’m most worried about in I5 is Velvet, given that she’s an Invuln tanker. Ironically, I recently (a few months back, right before they started announcing I5 changes) respecced her into something that much less toggly, much more auto. Irritatingly, what I’m taking her back to is something very close to what I had previously.
Really, though, the main difference is that rather than having RPD fully slotted, I’m tossing more slots into TI.
I realize that I’ve also been a bit spoiled with Velvet, based on her running with P-siren and getting all the bubbly goodness for protection. Since that’s now correspondingly less, I need to be a bit more careful with stuff.
Here’s what I’m currently looking at (written to 44, though I’m only at 28 so far):
Ghost toasties
Another event of yesterday when I’d signed on as Velvet in the late afternoon after getting home (and cleaning up the guest room): the Ghost Ship showed up in Talos.
Now, this isn’t too wildly unusual, except …
… I’ve only actually seen it once.
… I’ve never actually fought any of the ghosts (though Margie/Amorpha had)
… the Ghost Ship was stuck.
Yes, stuck. It was off on the western edge of Talos, “aground” just short of the wall. Just sitting there.
Spawning.
Velvet jumped in, started fighting, quickly learning how many of her toggles needed to be turned on against those little buggers. (Actually, given that they have negative energy attacks, I think, most of her toggles probably weren’t all that useful).
Punch, punch, punch, superjump to the next group, punch, punch, punch.
Amorpha showed up. We teamed. She finished her badge. She left.
Punch, punch, punch …
There were probably a couple dozen heroes over there — between it being late afternoon for half the country and most folks on busy building sonics and archers over in Atlas/Galaxy, it was a much lighter crowd than I’d have expected.
Punch, punch, punch …
Ectoplasmic!
Badge in hand, I departed, too. Fun.
Control issues
For Psi-clone: I5 and Illusion in 60 Seconds
For Mrs. Azure: I5 and Mind in 60 Seconds
City of Alts, Book V
Last night …
- Spent most of our online time last night as Velvet and P-Siren, since Invuln and Bubbles took it particularly hard from the nerf bat for I5.
It had been some weeks since we’d done much with the pair. One thing we immediately learned was that most of our mishes were old, old, old — the last activity had been at least one TF, if not more.
After about an hour of bashing grays (and seeing how much damage they actually did me), Seventy-Six came on with an RFH, so we joined up with him. Sort of. Nobody else answer the call, so only one of us could SK up. Bubbles don’t scale, so it made most sense for PS to be the 28 on a level 46 mission. That said, she soon discovered how the Malta could one-shot her if they spotted her.
The mish was actually pretty straightforward, even though 76 had set it back up to Invincible. I found I needed to run all my toggles — TI, Unyielding, and Invincible — to keep damage down to an acceptible steady stream. Never touched Dull Pain, though, which was good, I guess.
“Watch out for ambushes when we get out,” 76 warned. We exited. Looked around. Nada. Beat up on some gray Vahz nearby (the mish was in Steel). Nada. “Well, then …”
Whoosh. Three Titan battlesuits unleash missiles on 76. We run in. He goes down. I follow fairly quickly.
Well, heck. I head to hospital. Get out. Look around for 76.
He’s on his feet — he’s yellow, he’s orange, he’s …
I get over there in time to see him down already. He goes to hospital this time — and I see the mob of lvl 47-48 Malta making their way across Steel toward him.
He heads back, we beat up a couple, the rest vanish. Mercifully. It would have been a painful pull back to the Perez gate for the policfe bots; too many people at the close Yellow Line station to be able to risk that.
Learned what I needed though, and what I suspected, i.e., drop RPD, figure out a way to get Tough. I put together the respec … and learned I’d already taken my free one, so what I had was my TF one, and I really didn’t feel like running to wherever dude is to make it happen. So I shut Velvet down.
Main disad to the respec, aside from the question of how well it will work (I should be able to get, at this level, to the 90% damage cap with Unyielding, Temp Invuln, and Tough, but just) is that I can’t take Air Superiority, unless I forego Hasten for the future, which I’d rather not. Not enough Power Pools once I get into the (urg) Fighting Pool (to the get the invulnerabilit that Invuln no longer gives me).
No idea how much Endurance this will all suck, but … - The streets were even more full of archers and sonics, and frustrated people trying to come up with more unique names for both (most ignoring the common advice of adding an honoriffic or title — “Lady Longbow,” “Captain Scream” — or a gender designation — “Sonic Blast Man,” “Longbow Lass” — or even a name — “Screaming Sally,” “Bob the Bowman” — to get a unique moniker).
Meantime, Atlas had to spawn an Atlas 2 because of the traffic, and starting off with a new character was frustrating because both Contaminated and Hellions were being taken out much faster than the game would spawn them. - One unexpected bonus of I5 is that it seems to have fixed the in-game e-mail system — or, at least, it freed up some e-mail that had never gotten through.
- The revised Outbreak is fine, though having to hit an Info kiosk to learn more about enhancements was annoying. Flower Knight is also kind of annoying — either she dives into battle while you’re still going over to the glowy computer, or else she’s in the very last room, and so worthless.
- Margie rerolled Mrs. Azure to change her from FF to Sonic secondary (still Mind Control primary). I’ll be SKing her up to get her up to the Mister’s level. She quickly discovered that the Controller “Containment” damage boost worked great …
She also rerolled Star Protector to be an Empathy/Sonic … er, Sonic/Empathy … well, not sure which, but he had both powers, which Margie seemed to be happeier with than the Kinetics/Dark Defender he was before.
Only problem — with both characters she failed to “empty the pockets” before deleting the old version. Which was costly with Mrs. Azure …
I decided what-the-hell and went ahead and created Big Lungs on Champion, only slightly tweaking the design. To do that, I had to drop Truly Unstable, who was fun as a character, but I didn’t really care for the Rad/Rad power set. Twelve levels, easy come, easy go.
Big Lungs and Star Protector did a bit of running around. Lots of screaming, so to speak. Worked well. - With the ‘rents in town this weekend, not sure how much CoH we’ll get, but that might be just as well as people get used to I5.
Certainly I have no intention of going near Croatoa for a while, nor Icon. CC chatter was pretty quiet last night (I waggishly opined that everyone was intimidated by the new CC guidelines); more chatter in the SG channel, but mostly OOC on I5.
Storage Deficiency
So, very cool that the stores now show up on the maps, especially since you can now click on them and home in via the Nav bar.
But …
Why the heck do they just show a generic “store” icon? I mean, it makes a lot of difference what kind of store you go to, cost-wise. Not all stores are the same. So why not, like Vidiots, show the store type?
As I noted in another thread, why would folks *not* know where certain stores are? Are there no Yellow Pages? No Google Maps? Nothing that ties into the comm system? Heck, no 411 to call to get directory assistance?
I have to see if Vidiots has updated maps (they have) and download them. Hopefully the new icons won’t overlay the useful symbols.
The Night of a Million Zillion Archers
And a Million Zillion Sonics, too. All of whom are named things that include the word “Sonic,” “Shriek,” “Noise,” “Scream,” etc. Or for the former, things that include the word “Bow,” “Arrow,” “Shaft,” etc. Or, of course, misspelled/cleverly-spelled versions thereof.
Or there’s always my own contribution (on Triumph), Big Lungs. Guess what type of blaster she is …
Only Heroic
According to Statesman’s Issue 5 Address, one thing I haven’t seen mentioned elsewhere …
We are automatically reducing every character’s Reputation to “Heroic”
Tanker-Doo!
To go with the Scrapper defense numbers, here are the Tanker defense numbers.
There are various ways — 6-slotting a slew of things — to hit the 90% DmgRes cap with Invuln, but only for smash/lethal. En/El can only get up to 40% or so.
I still find it … ironic that Fighting/Tough resists physical damage twice as well as Invuln/Resist Physical Damage.
I know where my respec with Velvet is going …
YOUR DOOM IS UPON YOU!
Per CuppaJo this morning:
Heroes –
Issue 5 is here! Tomorrow morning (Sept 1) we will be distributing one free respec and one free costume change to all characters. This gives you time to use any current free respec you have since tomorrow’s respec will overwrite any unused free respec.
Again, that is tomorrow – Sept 1 that these will be distributed.
It’s unclear if that means that I5 is live right this second, or will be as of tomorrow.
(It appears to be the former.)
Hmmm. Bad night to have to clean for guests arriving tomorrow. 🙂
On the other hand — given the “free costume” token, I’d steer clear of Icon in Steel any time through the weekend. And the one in IP may be pretty swamped, too.
Remember, man, that dust thou art …
Got on with Psi-clone and Amorpha last night.
- Did the Level 30 costume mish. PC spent an absurd amount of money to simply take off his jacket and roll up his sleeves. I’d really love to come up with something “heroic” for him to wear, but he’s just not the Spandex type, and I’m not thrilled with the non-Spandex uniforms on him. So he’s stuck in various forms of mufti.
Margie did some stuff with Amorpha I’ll let her describe. - Amorpha dinged 35.
Psi-clone might have as well, except for getting freaking killed by a Crey attack after we got the costume mish. This despite (a) warnings by Margie not to exit Icon until after she was outside and (b) having Empathy and green chicklets out the wazoo. As I’ve said, it’s a game of mistakes. Dagnabbit. First death for him in some time.
One Crey Juggernaut we missed tracked us all the way back to the Talos train station where we were having a nice chat with Shock Therapy. We disposed of him there with no more debt. - More ambushy goodness from the CoT as we pursued some magic gewgaw or another in Brickstown. Didn’t die that time.
Badges? We don’t need no steenkin’ badges!
I enjoy bitching about the devs as much as the — well, no, some folks like bitching about them way more than I do. They even seem to make a hobby of it.
I do get a lot of amusement when you contrast a thread like this (wherein you learn that Badges are the only thing worthwhile and that not retroactively giving new badges to the folks who have accomplished TFs/trials/kills that will give badges as of I5 is tantamount to being screwed by the devs with an broken bottle) to a thread like this (wherein you learn that Badges are worthless and that the devs having nerfed Phase Shift to prevent folks from stealthing missions with it and getting “unearned” Badges is also like being screwed with a broken bottle because Badges are worthless).
UPDATE: Important enough, evidently, for Positron to open a new thread on it and respond a couple of times already. The good news: the Shard TF is likely going to get redesigned to be a bit less of a grind (so described by some).
Scrapper-Doo!
Preliminary/draft analysis of numbers for I5 and Scrapper defenses.
Yikes! Glad I already dropped (not for this reason) OFFICER, since Super Reflexes truly looks to be the suck for I5 (and it wasn’t any great shakes before then). With Focussed Fighting, Dodge, and Weave fully 6-slotted with even SOs, the Defense is 46%; while that’s fine against an even-level minion, who has 50% TH, it looks like a great way to get really dead against anything higher (since, with Defense, if it hits, it does full damage).
Over on the Invinvicibility front (calling Mr. Azure and Kazima …) we’re looking at being unable to hit the Resistance Cap of 75%, even fully slotting all our Lethal/Smash Defenses (Unyielding, Resist Physical, Temp Invuln, totals only 70%). But you can hit the cap with … Tough. Which, of course, is in the Fighting pool. Which means you can’t be Invulnerable without using a generic power from outside the Invuln power set. Right.
I don’t know the Regen stuff well enough to comment (that’s Amorpha‘s bailiwick, though Lynn is beginning to get up there in levels), let alone Dark Armor (Araware). Good article, though; looking forward to the final version (read from the bottom, as there are several revisions in-stream).
(via Doyce)
Lynntime
Margie was busy with building a new character (Hildegard, a replacement for Ebon Maze) as well as testing some respec changes on Amorpha in anticipation of I5, so I spent the afternoon and evening play sessions with Lynn Calodo.
Despite being only an Ally, I had little trouble finding folks who were interested in my help by, well, asking if anyone was. That included getting SKed way over my level (from 13 to 25 or so), which was fun except for the whole Lack of Travel Powers to Get Across IP thing.
Still, had fun, and managed to ding Lynn all the way from just into 13 to 6 pips into 14 (and now I can actually Travel via Super Jump, so I’m a happy camper).
Let me think: afternoon was teaming with Caledonian and Darkest-Nite. Evening was teaming with Steel Giant, briefly with Callypsa, then later with Chaos Girl and Tejavo (?).
Endless slog against Devouring Earth, though, the last mission running at least 2 hours of non-stop punching against orange, red, and purple DEs. At that, I think I was still useful.
Avoided the copious open chat on Noelle being kidnapped (I’ll leave the irony of that event’s timing for the conspiracy-minded out there). Preferred the light RP of our own sessions. And the XP, of course.
Lynn’s doing great in her role as my “unpartnered alt” for when Margie’s otherwise busy. Only died once yesterday, and that whilst soloing — as with most scrappers, she can be unexpectedly fragile sometimes. But still fun to play and team with, even though I’ve now seen Lesser Devoured a lot closer than I ever have with Psi-clone.
Knockdown
I was just thinking about suggesting to the devs a enhancement type: Knockdown.
It already exists as an attribute to attacks, so the reprogramming would be minimal. It would do different things, though, depending on what it was slotted to:
- For a power that already has knockdown, it would increase the chance moderately (per damage and acc).
- For a power that does damage but doesn’t do knockdown, it would add a moderate percent chance (per the above case) to do so (if it’s a non-kinetic attack, assume that it causes muscle spasms, or a weakness of the knees and brief dizziness)
- For a power that does knockback, it does a large percentage transfer of KB chance to KD chance (e.g., you figure out how to take folks legs out from under them, etc.). Suddenly, energy blasters can (if they choose to invest) remove a major weakness of their power, etc.
Overall, this provide another way for folks to differentiate their powers and tactics without introducing new powers.
Thoughts? Like to make this coherent before I offer up the suggestion.
City of RL Endurance Drop
So I’ve been planning for Honeygun’s return for a while now. A while longer than I’d planned, if that made sense. But recently I started doing stuff with her new self, Taste of Honey, and Margie’s “companion” charcacter, Ebon Maze, on a casual basis.
Then the suggestion came up of doing the Transcendence Trial this weekend (before I5 hits). And it was suddenly, horribly, blindingly clear that Honey must do that. It was the obsession that had driven her to extremes, that had gotten her into trouble, turned her into a Dark/Dark Defender, and now (it was obvious) she needed to do this to reach personal completion — and maybe even get her a bit out of the trouble she was in.
So this past week became Get Taste of Honey Up in Levels Week. She was at 9. Over the course of the week, we managed to get her up to 12 — barely enough for the trial, but …
Friday night would be the big push. Then Margie suggested that we should do Positron. We could duo it, get Big Prizes, and get Honey up into comfortable level range for the Trial, which schedules had pieced together for Saturday.
Well, it was a great plan, and would have been still better if we’d managed to get started before 8:30p. At that, it was great fun. Margie brought along Kazima, who would be doing the Trial, so as to get back used to her. Positron takes three to begin, so Margie was recommended to Lady Photon as a starter, which was fine, since she’s always fun. We just got started kind of late.
Lady P ended up rejoining us on the second mish, and ran through to the very end. It all went great, aside from wrapping around 4 a.m., and at the end of it, Honey was at 15, the top level for the Trail. W007! Perfect!
Too perfect, as it ended up.
I made a few intentional design decisions with Honey as we proceeded. I’d decided a while back on Recall Friend, but as I played with Stealth, and thought of the Trial, I realized that Invis was a must for the tunnels. So that’s what I took for 14, rather than a travel power. Hated life, but I knew …
Margie did all the leg work and organization for the Trial, since I was (a) the Mystery Guest, and (b) not in the CoJ, and thus not in SG or Coalition Chat.
It was a faboo group — Honey and Kazima, Hyperthermian, Synoptic, Kinetica, Dubh Bas, Mal Bot 2300, Shock Therapy. And the Trial went flawlessly (once we shuffled players to actually have someone along who *had* the mission, which is why we ended up with a Malbot). Honey’s powers were perfect. I scouted the Troll Caverns (since I didn’t have the map any more) on Invis beforehand, and went straight to the Trial entrance to bring the group to her (as soon as she remembered to drop Invis). BD’s Dubh Bas — another Dark/Dark — also had RF, so he was able to help with gathers.
We went in, we cleared out the main floor by the numbers — Hyperthermian at the center, everyone else blasting/punching/slicing away. Then Honey started Invising into each tunnel, RFing folks to obelisks, etc. In the two cases where there were CoT right at the Obelisk, I brought Hype in to clear them out.
Two tries to click the Obs simultaneously, and we were on our way.
Prepped outside of Koaga’s door, then charged in in and knocked him on his ass in under 30 seconds. Piece o’ cake.
Only two regrets from the whole shindig:
- No time for RP with Honey. Folks were mostly concerned with the mechanics of the mission (understandable) and Honey was key to the mechanics thereof and doing a lot of running around. And I hadn’t had as much time to do the player/campaign prep as would have been ideal, either, so most of the players on the team weren’t in tune to what was going on (and I’d inadvertently spoiled the surprise for BD earlier in the week). So the RP for her was perforce limited. Still got a bit in — tearful eyes, and the like — but a lot less than I’d been hoping for.
- Stupid auto-exemp bug! Stupid, stupid, stupid. Level 15? Sorry, no XP for you! Good thing both doing the trial and getting the badge were important for Honey, because she got jack-all for it (which, to be fair, was true for most of the player). Still, felt somehow … cheated, since it was a bug. Rrg.
Still, again, it was perfect. Already talk of doing it again with a bit different set of character and/or players, though I’m not sure Honey will want to go through that again.
Got Kitten down to bed after that, then played a bit more, but I found myself nodding off around 10:30p (having had to get up around 7:30a for Kitten), and bailed out early.
So, where now for Honey?
Oddly enough, I was complaining after the Trial to Margie that I was finding her power set annoying — having to hit for a Heal is a PitA. On the other hand, as I was running Psi-clone later, I found myuself missing Tar Patch and Recall Friend, so maybe it’s not so bad.
The Invis is great, and, even I5-nerfed, will be helpful for her. That means waiting for another full level to 16 for a travel power — and it’s a power I didn’t originally have slotted for her. So not sure what’s going to happen there.
Also need to think about pairings. Honey and Kazima work well together, but that leaves Torchielle out in the cold again. Margie’s ambivalent about Ebon, not sure what’s going to go on with him.
But at least Honey’s back in the game. Now I just need to write up some stuff for her — a *lot* of stuff — and maybe get some folks involved in that.
But no more Positron at 8:30p. That’s just crazy. 🙂
Behind the scenes with Manticore
UPDATE: Now with an actual link! Woo-hoo!
Manticore answers questions and feeds tantalizing hints of future CoH game content, including the return of Hero 1, attacks by the CoV villains and the Reichsman and 5th Column, the Avilians, and more.
Part of what’s seriously (unfortunately) been overshadowed in all the game system tweaks of I5 is the content stuff — the new Croatoa zone, the Troll Rave, the arson in Steel Canyons. Indeed, some of that stuff has been on Test for so long, that a measure of excitement over it has worn off. Folks are more forcused on which of their powers have been nerfed.
Unfortunate, because there are a lot of keen content bits in CoH, and that’s what makes the game, more than the mechanics, interesting.
Talk about a timed mish …
The government of China is forcing online game manufacturers to start coercing players to get off after 3 hours of play (and taking a 5 hour rest).
In China yesterday, the government agency that oversees the online game industry said that testing of a system to regulate the number of hours gamers spend online will be ready for deployment this October.
The system will impose penalties on players who spend more than three hours gaming online. The system is slated to be fully operational in late 2006 or early 2006 and will be compulsory for all massively multiplayer online role-playing and online casual games.
“This timing mechanism can prevent young people from becoming addicted to online games,” Xiaowei Kou, the deputy director of the general administration of press and publication (GAPP), said during a press conference in Beijing.
According to the Interfax news service, an official arm of the Chinese government, the system reduces the ability level of a player’s online game character if the game is played beyond the three-hour limit. Basically, play more than three hours and the system cuts a game character’s ability by half. Play more than five hours and the system reduces a game character’s ability to the lowest level possible.
Sounds like another reason not to move to China …
Statesman speaks! (Sort of)
LiveJournalist who got to speak with Statesman at GenCon as to the basis for some of the I5 changes:
What he explained to me is that he doesn’t want teams or individuals rushing through the mission maps recklessly. He wants people to stop and think and discuss and figure out strategy. He doesn’t want this to be a mindless game of beat up on things that an 8 year old could play, but rather a thinking person’s game.
He is as frustrated with I am with the way most teams play of just plowing on through and not thinking. I explained to him that this is my problem with playing on large teams, and as a result I die more than when I solo and take my time going through missions. He said that this is the reason he’s making these changes, to make people slow down and think.
One fellow said, “But I like to take on mobs solo on Unyielding.” Statesman chuckled and said, “Well, you won’t be able to do that.” The guy (in his late teens, kid to me) shrugged and walked away.
I agree with Statesman on that, that would be unreasonable and make the rest of a team unnecessary if you could. solo on Unyielding or Invincible. Tenacious, he agreed, would be doable.
To compensate, the mobs will be more spread out and not as bunched up. Also, higher XP.
It sounds good in theory. I have been feeling like, really, in most missions I’m on the actual risk factor is really low if you simply don’t make egregious mistakes. People can die, yes — but most often when it happens it’s because of a yo-yo move regarding drawing aggro or not having a toggle up. If you have the basics down, you usually (at least in most of the battles I’m in) don’t have to do anything particularly smart, just not do anything particularly dumb. March in, do the preferred tactic you’ve used in the last several dozen encounters, bad guys go down. Lather, rinse, repeat.
And I’m not sure that’s a good thing.
So … if you make groups a bit harder, and a bit more varied (in size and composition), and space them out more, and make them worth more (and, on missions, make debt less) … you may be making the game harder. If you have to stop and chat for a couple of seconds before charging into the next group with any more than a hurried “Ready,” that might encourage more experimentation, and better gameplaying experience.
Or, put another way, blowing through the bad guys over and over again can be fun, but it can get boring. But you’d best not reduce the overall “experience per hour,” otherwise folks will feel like they’ve become less effective. Increasing XP (and reducing XP debt) sounds like a good way to compensate.
I hope.
Being the Cool Kids
When Margie and I founded the Consortium, it was largely as an extension of our local CoH circle.
Mission: A convenient place for the non-aligned/SGed folks in the Hill-Kleerup (“Consortium”) orbit to SG together (and thus see each other while online) — a fancy, slightly less functional, but currently operating local version of Global Chat. (I’d ID it specifically for our Colorado group, but we’ll likely open the doors to Avocet, too, at least. It is largely (for RL purposes) a social grouping; for RP purposes, it’s a way to easily team up on stuff. RP for characters not required (but always fun).
As we moved into the orbit of the Alliance, that description had to change some, and it became more of a place for folks to do experimental character work — alts, mostly. That was mostly for the benefit of Margie and myself, again, since we’re both altaholics, and didn’t want to have to justify that to any of the existing SGs (or delay in getting them tied into the Coalition Chat once we’d created them). It remained, with a couple of stray exceptions, mostly a place for our circle of friends, and often mostly for alts.
That’s been changing in the last month or so. We’ve been getting a steadily increasing number of applications. They’re generally alts still, including a growing pod of Kheldians, but the Consortium is becoming a lot more than just our vanity group. There are numbers there — when I look at who’s logged in on the SG page it’s now often more than 2-3, more like 6-7. It’s becoming a place where, to some degree, some of the cool kids hang out.
Wow.
I don’t know how that will continue to change the Consortium. Two areas that come to mind:
- We probably need to schedule more regular SG events and communications. The Consortium has always been RP-light, and as a largely alt-driven group we haven’t had much identity and bonding after the initial admission. Perhaps we should look at evolving that a bit.
- We (Amorpha and Psi-clone) probably need to consult with our folks a bit more often than we have over Alliance issues. Maybe. In general, I’ve felt comfortable speaking in the Royal We for the Consortium in Alliance Leadership discussions. Can I still say that’s true, with the number of active members who are, frankly, *not* me? Granted, our group is mostly alts still, and many (though by no means all) of them have leadership roles in other SGs. Still, something for me to bear in mind.
- Right now, the officers in the group are all me and Margie, in one body or another. Should I change that? Is there someone interested in more responsibility, and how comfortable do I feel with that?
In short, I feel a bit like we’re moving from a family business to something a bit more corporate (appropriate enough). I’m not thinking of any significant changes, especially since I think it’s the non-demanding, non-melodrama aspects of the Consortium that a lot of people are attracted to. But as we get bigger and more diverse, some changes will (and should) occur. I’m beginning to think about that.
And I’m noodling about it here rather than on the Consortium forum because, well, it’s still in the noodling phase. 🙂
Ding-ding
Sure, it’s a lot easier down at the lower levels, but it was still kinda cool that Fazenda and Araware managed to ding two full levels tonight (starting just in 6, ending just through 8).
Even managed to have some unexpected interaction with Malcalypse and Shade Dancer.