“Well, what would you prefer? Yellow spandex?”

Well, here’s a bad idea …
A lot of folks have been clamoring for Supergroup bases. Why, I’m not sure, but I guess it would be a comic booky thing to do.
The assumption was that there would be some sort of Influence cost to have a base, but the latest rumor from GenCon is that it will be paid for by a new SG stat called “Prestige,” generated by …
… folks being in SG Mode. I.e., in their SuperGroup colors.
Oh, yuck.
Is there anyone out there who actually spends much time in SG mode? Most folks pay a lot of attention to what their hero looks like, and color schemes are part of that. (That some folks couldn’t design a palatable uniform for themselves to save their souls is another matter.) To change over into the color scheme (at a minimum, the symbol) of the SG is usually jarring, and rarely pleasant.
I occasionally see folks show up, briefly, in SG mode to SG events. Depending on my hero, it either is just tolerable or is just plain yucky.
I mean, think about it.

IRON MAN: Well, Cap, we figured out a way to rebuild Avengers mansion.
CAP: That’s great, Tony.
IRON MAN: Put this on.
CAP: What?
IRON MAN: It’s your new Avengers uniform. See? It’s the same design as your current one..
CAP: But I’m the symbol of America! I wear Red, White and Blue!
IRON MAN: I don’t follow.
CAP: Well, who chose Red and Yellow as the Avengers’ official colors?
IRON MAN: (Whistles innocently.)
CAP: I mean, who am I supposed to be, Captain Red China? Captain North Vietnam?
IRON MAN: Well, maybe we could change the colors, just for you …
CAP: And there’s — where’s my star? My chest star? Like the star on the American flag. There’s an “A” here now?
IRON MAN: It’s for Avengers.
CAP: I’m not wearing this!
IRON MAN: But we need the mansion! And it’s not like you don’t already wear an “A” on your damned forehead or something.
CAP: Then let me use that one, and leave the star!
IRON MAN: Sorry, Cap — team insignia only go on the chest …

Yeah. That’s realistic.
Okay, so I understand the idea — it’s an extension of the Influence idea: as the citizenry recognizes an SG, they get the prestige that allows them to buy (or solicit from the city) a SG HQ.
But in Comic Book Reality, that doesn’t come from wearing super-hero outfits or logos (esp. given the limited number of logos). The citizenry knows of the Avengers, or the Justice Leage, or, hell, the Power Company because they get interviews of heroes, and track who belongs to whom. It’s the “common knowledge” embodied in the little SG name that floats over a hero’s head.
Team uniforms kinda went out with the New Mutants.

Manticore recap

Ran the Manticore TF on Saturday night. As a TF, it was pretty successful — took us about 4-5 hours, I think, with only two deaths (both Amorpha, and both kind of fluky).
Gameplay-wise, it was only so-so. Since we had a higher-level Illusionist, Panik, with us, as well as a couple of other folks with area holds, a lot of what Psi-clone brings to the table was pretty limited. I basically stood back, fired off Leadership, and did Healing and RA for folks (all of which was also available from others).
It was kind of disturbing, thinking about how PC’s build does or doesn’t lend itself to large teams, vs. the duoing that I usually do with him.
Task Force write-up is here.
In other weekend news, did some running around and leveling with Fazenda/Araware. Current plans are to get them to 10 and apply for the Storm Knights.
Made a brief pro forma appearance with the Azures last night; Margie is pretty certain she’s going to restart the Mrs. once I5 goes lives, doing her up with Sonics rather than FF. Not sure if that means I’ll be PLing her via SK, or if I should restart the Mr., or what.
Had a rather keen idea related to the Transcendence Trial yesterday, and took steps toward implementing it. That’s going to be a challenge, depending on timing.

And new twists on Test …

Various and sundry changes. The ones that stand out to me:

Banished Pantheon Summoned Husks no longer give experience when defeated. The Death Shaman has been given a slight increase in experience reward to offset this somewhat. Mentioned only because I sometimes encounter them. Were folks “farming” husks? Jeez.

Pool/Fitness/Health: now also grants you some resistance to Sleep. I’ve taken to taking this power on a number of alts, so I guess this is helpful.

Pool/Phase Shift: Although still a Toggle power, Phase Shift will desctivate if you leave it on for more than 30 seconds. Increased its Recharge Time. Mentioned only because folks are going apeshit over it on the boards.

Powers and Inspirations that resurrect will now leave the target protected from XP Debt (duration dependent upon the power). Now that’s pretty cool. You can rez someone and if they get gacked too quickly, they don’t get double debt. Nice.

All archetypes will now be able to reach their Max Defense sooner (was level 40, now level 20). Tankers now have a higher Defense cap than Scrappers and Kheldians. Scrappers and Kheldians have a higher Defense cap than all other archetypes. I guess that’s good — given that Defense has been clobbered so much.

Fixed text for Controller/Illusion/Group invisibility (regarding Defense suppression). Shudders.

Reduced Hold Duration of Freeze Ray, Bitter Freeze Ray and Tesla Cage (To bring it into line with other non-controller single targeted Hold powers). You be nerfed, too!

UI
Add new slash command, /release_pets, that unsummons all of your pets. Yay! Later, Fred.

Game
Players can push aside a pet, hostage or friendly NPC that blocks their way. Yay again!
For the most part, mostly quality of life issues coupled with some minor irks. For those looking at archery powers, a number of nerfs are included.

Tanks a lot

Updated INV data from Iron Vixen (from the “Weathering the Storm” INV (Tank) guide):

Interim test I5 resist numbers:

TI:30% to smashing/lethal (white SO is +6%)
Uy:5% to smashing/lethal, 10% to all other (non-psi) damage (white SO is +1% to S/L, +2% to all others)
R/El: 7.5% to Fire/Cold/Toxic (white SO is +1.5%)
R/En:7.5% to energy/negative energy (white SO is +1.5%)

Invinc now caps it’s +def bonus at 14 mobs in melee Statesman puts the bonus at 1.5% per mob, our tests show it close to 3.5% per mob.

Tough Hide is 5% def base to non-psi, non-toxic, non-AoEs.
“What are we supposed to use? Harsh language?”

The irony is killing me here

That even as I was contributing to discussions in the Alliance leadership yesterday regarding escalation of personal conflicts to various leadership and guidelines of how such conflicts should be resolved …
… I was dealing with a real life HR issue on just that very theme.
I am here to assure that it is *much* easier to deal with even the most fractious and irritating CoH character/player than a real, live, employee.
Further deponent sayeth not.

Scattered

Amusing, in a “WTF” way …
1. Amorpha got the Nemesis Staff (the Lollypop) on Saturday. She has yet to use it. Sunday was all the Respect Trial stuff. Yesterday was folks over at the house.
Tonight, though …
2. So yesterday I thought to myself, “I’d love to do a TF with Amorpha and Psi-clone.” So I researched the time slots available this coming weekend, looked up level-appropriate TFs for our characters, discussed it with Margie, and set up the invitation post for it in the Alliance planning area.
Of course, I completely forgot that we’d done it already.
Oh, well. Should still be fun, and with a different set of characters (besides us), it should play differently.

In a bind

Okay, I want to do the rotating taunt thing that Doyce has documented (and can be found in the full-blown taunt guide here), but do it as a macro, so I can replace the taunt power button in my tray. But the rotating thing looks to be set up as only for binds, not for macros. Is there a similar bind_file sort of mechanism for macros?

City of Alts!

Friday I played with my various alts on Triumph — taking each out for another spin and getting a feel for them, as well as creating the haughty Amethyst Queen (Broadswoard/Inv scrapper), who would be fun to play “in production.”
Actually ended up teaming up one of them — Captain Antares (Energy/Energy blaster) with another odd group of three or four others (the number varied, which was one of the odd things). That I was the oldest person in the group (older than the total of the others, I suspect) also made it odd. (When anyone asks, “How old r u?” it’s usually a bad sign.) Cap is another one I’d like to bring “live” onto Champion.
Friday night, Margie and I took Kazima and Torchielle out for a spin. Fun. Unlike previous instances, we felt a lot less “brittle” than before, and managed (both duoing and teaming up) to survive and thrive.
The Brunch-n-Brawl on Saturday has already been noted as another K&A show. Again, a lot of fun, some good XP, and some good teaming.
Margie and I got on again in the evening with Psi-clone and Amorpha, at last. We brought in Avocet on a mish (and kudos to him for bearing up with so much exemping down this weekend), then ended up getting pulled into a surprise birthday party for Callypsa. That’s not the sort of RP I usually get into, but it was fun enough, and it introduced PC to Lady Photon, which might develop into something interesting down the line.
2005-08-14_tv.jpgMost of yesterday was taken up with errands and house cleaning. We got on by 5, though, to run the TV Respec with Velvet and P-siren, as organized by Ode to Joy. Lord, what a slog. Team of 8, but everything, both prelim and at the reactor, was conning red and purple, and in copious numbers. Velvet was the sole tank — along with one controller (Mal) and one blaster (Avo), and everyone else a defender of some sort (Ode, Sun of Glory, Agent 12, Doctor Rune, PS). Crikey. A couple of deaths, mostly when we managed to aggro the entire control room (due to an anchor who ran riot through the place) and had to duke it out for what had to have been 10-15 minutes. After that, the core was almost anti-climactic. Double-bubble goodness and enough XP to nearly level Velvet. (PS was hampered in levelling by some griefer TPing lvl 52 Nemesis to the Talos train station. Yikes.)
(PB commented that there’d been a lot of griefing over the course of the day. Wonder if the Summer Kids are winding up their stay …)
Afterwards (and post-Kitten), we ended up on an odd team with Dr Awesome, Avo, and Zazi, along with … hmmmm, memory’s faded already. Anyway, Velvet was the sole tank again, and we rolled through some some missions without any real problem, getting Velvet through her last two bubbles to ding 28, the “Rage” level. Woo-hoo.
The irony about Sunday being a Velvet/PS day is that on Saturday night, during our one PC/A team (again, along with Zazi), Amorpha got the Nemesis staff. If we hadn’t had the Respec Trial already planned, we would probably have been focusing on those “mains” — and we will be, for the next couple of days (though we’ll have a late start tonight).

Level 18 Scrapper Looking for Feedback

As Dave said before, we dusted off Torch and Kazima today and had some fun. I’ve only run duo with Kazima since the Caverns and was more than a bit rusty. I also realized that since Dave and I duo so much I don’t have a good feeling for how well I play her on a team.
So, I would sincerely like your feedback/constructive criticism on my style of play. And even though running Kazima was the impetus for this post, input on all my characters is welcome.
Thanks!

CoJ Brunch-n-Brawl

Though the “Working Lunch” adventures of the CoJ today — as organized by Margie as of yesterday afternoon — was slow in starting, we eventually had a great group and some fun times.
2005-08-13_paladin.jpgDubh Bas was there, so we brought in Kazima and Torchielle. Other CoJ present were Girl Five, Tanker-belle, and Strete. We also had guest appearances from Empty Suit and Black Mynx.
Though we started out in the Hollows on the (perennial) Frostfire mish (that makes BD 49-and-2, I think), most of the time we were over in Kings Row, doing missions there against Vahz and Clocks and Hellions.
Both Kazima and Torchielle dinged (I think everyone who was along for most of the day did so). There was a lot of “rusty with this character, sorry, trying to remember the best tactics to use” around the group, since most of us were running alts that had been in storage for a while. Margie’s going to post separately about Kazima’s tactics.
For Torchielle, I was in hog heaven — lots of big groups of baddies (mostly conning from green to white), held in a nice tight cluster by a couple of tanks. I only rarely felt in too much danger, even after all of our Defenders left. I had much fun simply pouring flames of destruction onto groups and watching tons of damage numbers float upwards (including DoT).
On the way out of one KR mish, I was jumping to the next and saw a bunch of player reticles on an odd street corner. I dropped down — and saw a bunch of folks fighting with a giant clockwork … Paladin. Giant Monster. I’d read about it. Told the team. Broadcast on Coalition Chat. Started chucking fireballs …
And took the worst screen shot evah. Proof off to the right. I was trying to do too many things and having too may keyboard/finger problems. Bleah.
The battle probably took about a minute or two before he got dragged down hard. Didn’t get the badge, but did get about 300-odd XP (not shabby at 18th level) and had a blast (so to speak).
The whole party thing was a lot of fun, and kudos to Margie for organizing it.

Verisimilitude

This isn’t happening in CoH (as of yet), but I expect it’s a trend that will continue in the online gaming industry: ad placement in virtual environments.

After updating my version of SWAT4 to the latest patch from Vivendi, I soon discovered that the game was phoning home to grab posters to place in the enviroment of the game’s levels. Not only did it do this for every level that was played, but it also informed the advertisers of how long each poster was viewed, and by which gamer. Expect to see this kind of advertising and brand placement becoming standard fare in the very near future.
Now, I don’t know that this is an intrinsically evil thing. My biggest worry, in fact, is that it will cause a hit in performance. But it’s still vaguely … disturbing.
(via J-Walk)

Out of control

Statesman on various Controller issues:

We reduced AOE hold durations and increased the recharge times in order to prevent perma-holds in large groups. The single target holds remain quick, however, and with slotting, allows a Controller to hit one target, recharge, hit another, before the first one wakes up.
Well, hopefully more than one. To that extent, PC’s actually not in bad shape. Most of my holds are singletons — I never took Flash or Flare or whatever the multi-blind is. Indeed, my main “holds” are Blind and Deceive — which, it sounds like, have not been screwed with.

We decreased the # of pets because of their overwhelming power compared to some others. However, we added new pet functionality – permanence and going into elevators – to make the pets a little more Controller friendly.
Elevators? Elevators?! They can go through elevators, too!? Cool!
Hmmm. How about portals, too?
The number of pets isn’t such a concern to me, since I just got my first Phantasm and haven’t been trying to summon more than one. Indeed, one is sometimes more than enough. And, oh, yeah, Fred rocks.

Some Control powers in other sets were overlooked and still had the original values. We’ve been fixing those one at a time. A Controller should still be the best at holding!
Unless that holding is large group holds for too long a period.

AE limits on the # of targets – that’s something I’m still analyzing.
If the duration is going to be reduced and the recharge increased, don’t also reduce the number of targets. IMO.

Definition of the Controller’s role: that’s straightforward enough. Hold! I posted descriptions of my own Grav/Kin tactics. I’d fire off either Wormhole or Gravity Distortion Field to take some of the group out of the battle from the start. Then I’d selectively aim at others that were outlying. Note that I let the Tankers and Scrappers go in a few moments before hand to take the brunt of the initial aggro.
Always a good idea. Unless you can Deceive.
Now, let’s talk about Invis …

Fred-be-gone

Phantasms are great — until you don’t want them any more, and instead stand there appalled as they barge into the next group of Evil Bad Guys just as you were trying to set them up …
And with I5, Phantasms stay up (according to the release notes) effectively as long as you want (until you zone, die, etc.).
In a move that makes me feel slightly better, States has announced …

I’ve seen many, many requests for an ability to unsummon pets…We’ll add more later, but for now we have a slash command:

/release_pets
Cool. Now Fred the Phantasm won’t be energy blasting past my shoulder that horde of Purples while I’m making my first Deceive attempt. Now all I need to do is reslot the Attack Rate so I can summon them quickly after I’ve banished them.
Now, to what “add more later” means … will this be a click option on pets? Or will there be other pet controls (someone on the board suggested “attack $target,” “stay,” “guard $target,” etc.)? Maybe, now that our AoE “control” powers are being so weakened, “controller” will represent our control of our pets …