So ding-y together …

Got Psi-clone up to 33 yesterday. First level where, suddenly, we drop out of the “power/2-slots” pattern. Knew it was coming (I have PC planned out to 50), but it was still … somewhat surprising to be offered three slots.
The other thing that’s changed is a more intentional effort by Margie and me over the last week or so to do more teaming outside of our duos. Last night ended up (after some SG Leadership Stuff) doing some missions with Strete and Zazi. It’s interesting the changes in tactics and dynamics (not to mention the difficulty in shouting “Don’t go over there, that wandering Fire Thorn Wielder isn’t by himself!” when two of the four party members are not in the room.
Teaming is slower, but does make the dynamics of different missions a bit more variable. Good stuff. And it makes the Empathy side of things with Psi-clone all the more useful.

Weekend update

Well, not actually much to update. The Blogathon kind of sucked it all up — early to bed Friday, all day blogging Saturday, big nap on Sunday, and early to bed Sunday, too.
Did have some fun helping Mal ding to 50. Also played the Azures, which is always a joy. Mr. Azure got Jump Kick at the last level, which does much better than Brawl in terms of damage (and knockdown), but which has the world’s goofiest animation.
Margie, whilst I was busy, spent a lot of time on Test, as well as doing badge collecting. It was nice having her stay up late with me on Saturday, and nice that she had “something to do” while I was busy typing.
On the Dev front …
… the NPCs in Escort missions will be faster (if not necessarily smarter). Other NPC/Ally types of stuff are slated, if not for I5, then for the future. (Interesting comment in that thread about the new value for Team Teleport and Team Fly with these sorts of mishes.)
… Blaster Defiance is being buffed. That fits in with the comments I’ve read previously on it. Looking forward to seeing how it works with Torchielle.
… Some graphical bits and pieces from Test, including NPC highlights (Margie commented on this the other day) and stores on maps (missing labels, but that’s a known issue).

“You, sir, have an illness”

Or at least that’s what Avo said when he notice me with yet another new alt.
2005-08-03_fazenda-araware.jpgIn this case, both Margie and I have them. New alts on Champion.
On the left is Margie’s, a creature named Araware, a “dust spirit” of some sort (she can provide more detail) who happens to be a Spines/DA Scrapper.
On the right is mine (and the trigger for this change), Fazenda. A stage magician, who actually performs her tricks (and protects the city) with impossibly high-tech gadgets. (Insert mysterious backstory here.) As a hero, she’s an Empathy/Energy Defender.
Fazenda existed as one of my “pilot” characters over on Triumph for a few months before I got a sudden yen for an Empathy Defender. (It’s been a common secondary for my Controllers, and it’s my second production Defender, after Truly Unstable. Well, there’s another, but she’s not in public as yet.)
Since we don’t have server transfer, that meant a couple of characters had to be retired. For me, the answer, sadly, was Sister Chinook — fun backstory on her, and I liked her outfit, but the Ice Controller thing just never quite solidified for me (so to speak), nor did I ever find a compelling voice for her. It’s a shame to have one of Puck Bunny’s countrymen leave, but that’s how it goes.
Margie decided to drop SC’s cohort, Toxic Sister, since she was looking to do another spine scrapper anyway.
Easy come, easy go (of 9 and 10 levels of character), I guess.

Glutton for punishment

There are folks who are “unlucky in love” — for whom romantic involvements involve going from failed relationship to failed relationship.
It occurs to me I might have some insight into that now — because I am “unlucky in Pick-Up Group.”
Today’s example was yet another PUG in the Hollows with Lynn. Utter disaster. The mobs were conning too high, but that didn’t stop us from going into the breach — complete with an idiot blaster sniping targets in the middle of the massive mobs of trolls.
Three deaths. Yikes.
Finally quit off to the hospital.
Went back to Steel. Managed to kill myself again.
Wandered back from the hospital. Got a tell from one of the guys from the PUG. Felt sympathetic. Should have known better. Teamed. It was the idiot blaster. Who then proceeded to spend all of his time (a) in a store, and (b) afk.
So I dropped the team and sneaked away, then headed onward.
Erased a pip of the debt by the time I was through, but … yeesh.
Perhaps an intervention is in order.
Why do I do it? Because, there have been times, in the past, when I’ve gotten involved in PUGs that were simply faboo. Great times. Great XP. Success after success after success. Play time for as long as I could, levelment and merriment.
It’s the memories of those rare — but real — experiences that keep me coming back over and over again.
Even if I keep having disastrous love affairs PUGs as a result.
Though I did have an earlier good adventure with Lynn that made up for it a bit.

On Lurkers

I know you’re out there.
A month or so back, someone approached Velvet (I think it was) in a train station. The conversation was along the lines of, “I know you. You have that blog …”
Then I got a PM on the forums today from Liberty Bill, saying he enjoyed the blog. He then expressed surprise when I told him he was welcome to comment.
Granted it’s not, upon reflection, completely transparent to a new user that anyone visiting here can comment. You just need to register, meaning you have to set up an identity in Typekey to sort of establish that you are a human being, not a spambot, and then sign in. The instructions are actually down in the comment section, but maybe not obvious.
It’s painless, commercial-free, and secure. And free, of course.
Once you’ve done that, you can comment away. And, in fact, you are welcome to.
It is odd, though. The folks who comment here are all (with the exception of the two individuals mentioned at the top of the post, and the former only comment once, I think) people I know in RL. Having virtual presences show up here is to be expected, but still a bit different. (At least for this blog.) I haven’t kept it a secret, nor have I publicized it (though if anyone clicks on the “www” button beneath one of my posts on the Alliance forum, they come here). It’s just been hazy barrier between the IC and OOC world, as much in my own imagination as in reality.
But now I can’t get over the feeling now that there are others, just out of sight, watching from the shadows (a la The Mark of Gideon). So, if you are … comment. Say hi. Set down and chat a spell.

Blowing off the dust

In an odd mood last night, so we played Velvet and P-siren. And, y’know what? They kicked ass. Still feel ponderously slow, but, damn, some big damage numbers rolling up the screen, and not a lot of damage in return. Granted, we were clearing some old mishes, but even the new stuff worked out pretty nicely.
Makes me want to continue working with them.
Meanwhile, the CC was filled with the Big MH Turn to Evil Smackdown. Which was occasionally entertaining to listen in on, but which pretty much monopolized the channel for a couple of hours at least, which was probably *not* a good thing.
Had fun anyway.

32! 32! 32!

Got Psi-clone up to 32 (for real, this time), munching through Devouring Earth and Council sorts. Yay!
So now I get my Ultimate Power! My Pet! My … Phantasm!
Who is …
… well, imagine the most inept and annoying energy blaster you’ve ever had on a team. Not a clever, helpful, and suggestable one like Avocet, but a really annoying one who attacks before the team is ready, knocks-back the mobs you’ve carefully clustered, and then shunts off the aggro onto you.
Hrm.
Actually, the Phantasm is too bad. He does pack a whallop, he’s good when the balloon goes up, and he does add to our general firepower. He’s also good at tackling the little “debris” monsters, like Rubble. I just wish he understood some basic commands, like, “Heel!” and “Down!” and “Play Dead!” Like a dog.
Hmmm. I’ll have to give him a name.

Home again, home again, jiggety-jig

Mr & Mrs Azure dinged 12 tonight (after starting off a pip above 11). Yay. We’re both on the Leaping track, but at the last second I decided rather than take Combat Jump (as the Missus did), I went for Jump Kick — which as one of the more annoying animations in the world, but will be something better for my combat chain than Brawl (it does comparable damage, out of the box, to some of my other kicks).
We’re running at Rugged right now, and still managed to make our way through two Marrowsnap iterations full of numerous orange patrols and the Purple boss himself without any deaths or real problems. Well, except for the orange patrol ambush in the lobby the first time we went in.
We continue to enjoy the characters, both for their gameplay and for the RP we can do, tossing out odd questions, malapropisms, and enthusiastic greetings.

Manticore

Fun stuff.
Psi-clone and Amorpha both dinged 32 31. And I think we each died only once. It was a pretty bloody TF — most of the characters went down at least once at various times. With the magnitude of the hits that were being dished out, all it took was a couple of hits and some healer inattention and, bam, eating carpet. Throw in ambushes and those horribly persistent Paragon Protectors, and …
Still, it timed out pretty well, and most folks seemed to have fun. I’ll be curious to see how something like this runs under I5.

More I5 Dev Comments

The new “organization” of comments seems to be working. At least, I’m seeing more coherent notes and explanations from folks about the different I5 changes than before:

  • AoE Limits: The game starts with targets at the center of the effect, or the centerline of the cone, and checks TH on each one, stopping when it runs out of targets in the AoE or when the max number under the new nerfs is reached. So AoEs will continue to center about where told; it’s just the fringes that will be most likely to be unaffected.
    Since Taunt is auto-hit, it will affect the targetted mob and the four nearest (since there’s a limit of 5).

  • Enemy accuracy: AVs will have their accuracy reduced from the current 90% to 75%. Minions won’t be decreased because they “already have the worst accuracy in the game.”
  • Various previously unlisted bits: The Paragon Dance Party will now have contacts that sell Inspirations (which carries the drug analogy perhaps a bit too far). There’s now no distinction between Range and Cone Range (a single set of enhancements, which is nice). Enemies (wave/ambush) may follow you through elevators and doors (yikes?!). Various other clarifications, bugs, and stuff worth reading.

I5 changed changes

Dev feedback to the official I5 threads is beginning to come in.
On Controllers, they’re monitoring very closely the assertion that the AoE Duration and Recharge nerfs are too heavy in the face of what a Controller is all about. Statesman says he’s doing actual playtest of a Grav/Storm controller.
On Tanks, the Unyielding nerfs are being rolled back somewhat. The Defense debuff will be back at I4 levels. The Energy/Elements resists are being “doubled” (can’t recall the fraction they were originally reduced). Other indications, though, are that the Tanker stuff (esp. the aggro bits) are working as intended (to the Devs’ minds), and that Tanks that stick around to protect the squishies should be able to do their job.
Also, Taunt may only do five mobs, but it’s only five at a time. There’s no upper limit (aside from death) to the number of folks a Tank can taunt (Taunt, PAoE, punch-voke) over time.
More out there over time, I’m sure.

More I5 discussion

The “dev comment” forum posts are up — each commenter getting to post once, leave space for the devs to react. As such, the discussion is a bit more studied as to the various I5 issues (and informed by an intensive weekend of testing on Test).
My reactions:

  • Mission Customization: Good ideas (escorts, rescues) that may suffer from clumsy AI and poor documentation. We’ll see.
  • Blaster Defiance: As blasters drop below 40% HP, their blasts do more damage. Fun idea, but the cries have gone from “Yikes! Horribly imbalanced! Overpowers the blasters!” to “Yikes! Horribly useless!” Shrug.
  • XP Changes: Something you’d think nobody’s complain about, except that people manage to somehow — either dismissing it as unecessary or as evil because it’s a reaction to all the other nerfs. My thoughts: unmitigated goodness, and just what the game needs to ease things through the lower levels and create more reward for more even-conning (and now more dangerous) mobs.
  • Tanker Changes: A bit miffed over the Taunt limits. More critical are the nerfs to the defenses/resists. Um, like, guys, tankers are supposed to be, well, difficult to damage. And you’d think a power set called “Invulnerable” would be, well, even moreso. From what I read, though, the proposed INV changes — Unyielding in particular, but all of them in toto — go way beyond some level of balance and into the nigh-unplayable. Which is bad news for Velvet, I fear.
  • Controller Changes: I think the reductions on AoE holds are extreme, too. Fortunately, that doesn’t affect Psi-clone all that much, largely because (a) he hasn’t taken any AoEs and (b) he’s been orienting towards being a confender (or a detroller, or something like that). The only bright spot is that, strictly read, it doesn’t look like Group Invis took as big a hit from the nerf bat as Invis or Superior Invis or Stealth (knocks on wood).
  • Scrapper Changes: More damage is all good, right? Except, of course, the nerfs to defenses (in particular Lynn‘s Invuln or Mr. Azure or Amorpha‘s Regen) make the class much squishier — closer to a melee version of Blasters with more HP.
  • Defender Changes: And there goes P-siren under the nerf bat with changes to all the FF powers. 12.5% vs 20%? Swell. Every little bit will help now, I guess, but I worry that she’ll be too vulnerable as a team member. Rrg.
  • Power Pool changes: Thank goodness they’ve nerfed the defense from Hover. I mean, that 5% was such an imbalance to the game …

I remain guarded optimistic that not everything foretold will come to pass on Live, and that the actual changes will involve an evolution of tactics, not a revolution of some ATs simply not being worthy playing. But …

Ding, ding, ding went my heart …

Lynn Calodo dinged to 11, and got invited into the Allies. Now, at least, I can hear the chatter, even if Lynn’s not the type to actively go out and seek same. Have to find a way around that.
More importantly, Amorpha and Psi-clone both dinged 30, which feels like a huge milestone (though 32 will be bigger). Did a lot of SKing to higher level folks, which helped (hopefully we each contributed to the causes as well).
For the record, Amorpha beat Psi-clone there by at least 24 hours.
Toyed with the idea of a new costume for Psi-clone, but couldn’t come up with something I liked.
Did a respec on Psi-clone, since he had two in the hopper. Dropped (pushed back to later) Rez in favor of Air Superiority, and droped Assault in favor of Tactics. Also dropped Haste (until later) in favor of Maneuvers. Did some play with that pair last night, and it seemed to work well, though Amorpha’s such a force of nature it’s hard to tell if she’s gotten even more lethal.
It’s actually an interesting evolution in PC, moving a more away from the Controller side (esp. in groups) and into more of a “Defender in Denial” — beefing up the Empathy, taking the Leadership pool, etc.
Would have been handy tackling Inferno the other night. Yikes.
As I plotted PC out toward 50, I realized that I needed to take Hasten after all — I was 6-slotting too many things for recharge. But up until now, I really haven’t made use of it.