Category: Resources & Rules

Hokey smoke! Preview info on Issue 5! Yowzers!

New Zone

Coming to the test server soon (if not already), and, one hopes, to the real servers shortly thereafter …

All Task Forces and Trials will now accept any player who has reached at least the minimum level of the Task Force or Trial to play it. Players above the maximum level of the Task Force or Trial will be auto-exemplared to the highest level of the Task Force or Trial. They will remained exemplared until they are no longer a member of the taskforce or trial.
This will make life a lot easier for people who have levelled beyond given TFs and Trials. No worries about exemplaring and/or losing the member you’re exemplared to. I have an odd sense that it might homogenize things a bit (no need to put together mixed parties — all your level 45s can just gang up and auto-exemp down to do Positron) — but I’m not sure that’s not a bad thing, just … different.
Still, I think it nets good.

Okay, pretty radical respec on Velvet, based on (a) her Endurance drain sucks, (b) I really need to get Invincibility, and (c) Doyce’s preaching on the subject.

Continue reading “Velvet Respec”

I had a big long post on this all written up, but I seem to have deleted it. So … just read the article, an interview with Cuppajo and Statesman, about powers, features, zones, and other game attributes coming up with Issue 5 and beyond.

You can now buy the “All the stuff that came in the special edition Collector’s DVD CoH” set — without the CoH disc (but with 30 days free) — for just $20. In addition to the PvP comic and the Statesman Heroclix, you also get access to an exclusive Cape style, the VIP Badge, and (a-ha!) the Prestige Powerslide travel power — which I’ve always wondered about, when I’ve seen people using it.
Now I know.
Don’t plan on getting the package (though the Powerslide would be kinda cool), but now I know.

Via Statesman, stuff for I5 …

skills – unlikely
new zone – likely
new missions & task forces – likely
new power sets – likely
new events – likely
Cool.

The Devs agree that the SS/SJ Acc debuf is a problem — though not enough of a show-stopper to delay Issue 4 (huzzah). So they are experimenting with some stuff:

The Accuracy debuff, though only equal to Flight, has negatively impacted players’ gameplay. I challenged myself and our team to come up with a possible alternative to a flat out debuff – and yet still address the PvE and PvP issues with both powers.

Our solution: suppression. When someone attacks, they temporarily suppress their speed or leaping – making them temporarily vulnerable to attack (and we’ve removed the accuracy debuff). We’re playtesting it internally now and we hope to get it up to the Training Room server for your input ASAP.
The rest of the Statesman post has some interesting info on what the Devs consider as challenge/fun design goals. While one may debate over the particulars of how they go about those goals, that (a) the goals are articulated, and (b) the Devs are willing to change their course when things don’t work are both to their credit, and to the advantage of the game.

Per Doyce, LJ CoH, and just about everyone else who wasn’t stuck on a phonecon whilst repairing their Firefox installation …
Funny stuff is going on … and me stuck at the office, dammit. 🙂
Although — Margie tells me that most of the servers are showing as “Down” or “Unknown” — except the Test Server, which shows as doing just fine. Heh.
As for actual rules changes, I’ve mentioned some here previously, but a few other items gleaned here and about:

1. Costume/appearance sliders are available to all characters via Icon. Just send money …
2. Knockback! For (well, against) heroes!
3. Lots of new status effects for villains. Various new power protections from same. Lots of power changes, enemy power changes, enough other crap to apparently render every guide up on the boards obsolete …
4. Coalition Chat! That should help the Alliance of Champions quite a bit.
5. PvP Arena yadda-yadda-yadda.
6. Experience distance/map/mission limits yadda-yadda-yadda.
7. Construction on University Campuses has begun in Steel Canyon and Founder
   

Some CoH stats:

More than 10 million characters were created in City of Heroes, of those 10 million:

o 27 percent were of mutant origin
o 24 percent were of magic origin
o 18 percent were of natural origin
o 16 percent were of science origin
o 15 percent were of technology origins

The 10 million characters created in City of Heroes is equivalent to the combined populations of Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston and Philadelphia.
And that’s not counting all the citizenry wandering around the Manhattan-sized burg. As one commenter put it, “I think that explains why every good name I think up is taken.”
And there’s more …

… but, if I read this correctly … a free respec for the First Anniversary of CoH (going into place tomorrow, though the anniversary is today).

In preparation for tomorrows Anniversary Respec being released on the live servers, we will be testing this feature today on the Test Server. We will be testing this feature in a few minutes. The Test Server will be brought down to enable this functionality.

NOTE: If you still have your free holiday respect, the anniversary respect WILL replace it. If you have respecs banked from running Task Forces or Trials, they will not be affected.

Thanks once again for a year of heroic testing!
Shiny!
This ought to seriously reduce a lot of the griping re “My power got nerfed with Issue 4!” once that goes into place (which looks to be fairly imminent). Especially if that means a respec using the new character design stuff, too. And for those who don’t think Ish 4 will “ruin” their character, it’s a nice gift (as well as the new Badge to be given to everyone who signs in during the month of May).

Based on this forum post from a dev about the “Surviving Eight,” we learn more about archery:

Due to the upcoming Power Sets Manticore is actually a Trick Arrow, Archery Defender.
Hmmmm. Given that most Blaster primaries are available as Blaster secondaries, that implies that Archery will be a Blaster primary. That lets us have both “I pierce/punch/explode/attack you” arrows and “I use my net/screamer/glue arrow” types of powers, which is a nice way of splitting it up in classic comic terms.
I like. Not planning on getting one, but I like.

So Issue 5 (already under discussion, since Issue 4 is just in “let’s try to get the frickin’ bugs out so we can release it” mode) will include (ta-daaaah) new power sets.
Statesman has (from what I read) indicated that power sets to come include bows, sonics, brawling, pistols, staves, shields and magnetism.
Oooooooh. Fun stuff.

Since it looks like this is in the hopper, here’s some info I’ve started collecting:

• RPGExpert Guide
• Greystone Anom’s Guide
• GameAmp Guide

Key points:

1. 4-8 heroes, starting in Skyway.
2. Level 15-21. Cannot SK up into the range, but can SK within the range. Exemplaring down is possible, but may cause problems if the anchor gets discoed.
3. 2½ to 6 hour time frame.
4. SO reward at the end if you have space (+1 SO randomly to someone n the group) (and possibly another fighting Babbage just before that).
5. Lots of Clockworks, so watch that Endurance drain and Energy Resistance.

Nice post (if, as the discussion points out, a bit flawed here and there) on travel powers and their relative speeds and slotting.
I currently have two heroes (Velvet, Torchielle) with Super Jump, and one (Psi-clone) with Fly. And Margie’ P-Siren has Teleport.
My observations …
Super Jump:
Speed: A
Control: C
Safety: C
Fun: B
Summary: Good fun and great speed, but you run the risk of touching the ground on a regular basis (and possibly getting Mezzed or shot), and you inevitably find yourself bouncing down right behind some freakin’ wall.
Fly
Speed: B
Control: B
Safety: A
Fun: A
Summary: It won’t get you there as fast, but it will get you there in style. And you can (with some up-front messing about with keybinds and the like) control your path and speed with precision. Safety is very high, at least at low levels (though you can draw agro as you come in for a landing, ahem, and you need to watch for rooftop nasties). But, damn, it’s flying, and who can beat that?
Teleport
Speed: A
Control: B
Safety: D
Fun: B
Summary: With practice (a good caveat) you can really move quickly, and accurately. But anything that lets you easily fall great heights isn’t very safe.
Honeygun’s Sprint+Swift power is almost travel-worthy (DADC), and she’ll be getting Super-Speed next up, so I’ll let you know how that goes.

Statesman speaks out about the balance goals of City of Heroes, in terms of what sort of opponents should be solo-able, and where the devs think the current state of the game needs to be changed. Much interesting conversation (if not necessarily anything that seems to be changing Statesman’s mind) ensues.
Meanwhile, some changes on tap for Issue 5:

1) Instead of the first five levels being debt free, the first TEN levels will be debt free.

2) XP debt will be halved on mission maps (that includes outdoor mission maps, too).
#2 should encourage mission play, vs. street sweeping (which goal is near and dear to the devs’ hearts). #1, though, only delays the Ceremonial First Major Debt Face-Plant to moments after dinging Level 11 instead of moments after dinging Level 6 …

(Below be spoilers, me hearties …)
We ran through the Cavern of Transcendence Trial a couple of times last night, with two different teams. Here were some resources we checked out first (though I didn’t read the CoH Forum info):

• CoH Forum discussion of the Trial
• Backstory to the Trial
• Notes on the Trial (incl. spoilers)

The following are some lessons learned we took from the trial efforts (one of which was successful, the other of which wasn’t). Hopefully they’ll be helpful to others. A lot of these apply to Task Forces in general, too …
(UPDATE: After the third try, we learned a couple of new things, identified as “NEW” below …)

Continue reading “Lessons Learned in the Cavern of Transcendence Trial”

Cuppajo has passed on a fine resource for naming your hero: The Phrontistery, a collection of great and often obsolete words. Just on one page, I found some great names whose meanings would make for fine hero names:
Gablock, Gadarine, Galanty, Galeate, Galliard …
Hey, it’s gotta be better than dYYN0m8te! or something like that, and a lot less likely to be taken than Captain Thunder.

HeroStats is a fine little CoH utility (open source and free) that sits in the background and monitors what’s going on in your CoH session. It collects statistics on what you do that you can review later, and provides some real-time monitoring that’s quite useful
The Good

1. It will monitor the buffs that have been done to you (and the ones you do on others?) with a timer, showing when they will be coming down. The utility is worth it just for this and the next feature. Very useful to give your bubbler a warning, for example, or to know when your Dull Pain is going to drop.
2. It notes recharge time on powers, and lets you know (without interpolating from the power tray) how long until each power comes back.
3. It tracks the type of damage done to you. You can see this in realtime (which may tell you about buffs/defenses you need to put up), and you can analyze it later (“I’m taking mostly X damage on the missions I run, so I should slot up …”).
4. It tracks how far you are to levelling, and, based on the XP you’re getting per minute or hour, about how long that’s going to be. Good for deciding if you want to go on one more mish before you call it a night.
5. The statistics it collects lets you see what the damage is you’re doing with each attack, and what your TH success rate is. That, in turn, may influence further powers, inspirations, enhancement slotting, etc.

The Bad

1. The system doesn’t automatically track and segregate stats by alt, so you have to do some file management, file merging, etc., yourself as you shift between toons.
2. The quantity of stats it collecs gets very big. If you have to merge in a file from a day or two of gaming, it can take a looooong time (and impact performance horribly while it does so).
3. The numbers collected for statistical purposes are not always easy to interpret — and the documentation (on the system website) is pretty sketchy.
4. Some folks find the concept of number-tracking to be offputting, or at least detrimental to gameplay. Knowing that they are 637 XP from levelling, or approximately 0:45 at the current rate, takes them out of the “magic.”
5. Hey, look — one more thing to clutter your screen!

The Ugly

1. The system works (in-game) by keeping a window up over the CoH window. this leads to a variety of problems (if you are running CoH in full-screen mode):
   • Framerate hit.
   • Can obscure other windows (especially when you manage enhancements).
   • If you go to move it or touch it in any way, it drops the mouse out of the game and brings Windows to the foreground.
2. It has some glitches to it, and doesn’t always reliably start tracking stuff. I’ve had to stop, close the ap, and restart it to get it working again.

Overall, it’s definitely worth it for the buff/recharge tracker, secondarily for the stat analysis of hits/damage and the XP/time to level. The latter would not keep me using it, but the former definitely will.

Latest I found from Statesman. Some minor changes from previous posts (numbering mine):

Based on data from the Training Room and feedback on the forums, we will be making the following changes to how XP, Influence and other drops are divided:

[1] If a player is in a zone, did NO damage in a combat and has dead for more than a minute, he receives no XP. If a player is more than 300 ft. away (an increase of 100 ft.) from the mob when it

Long, long, long, loooooong thread on the CoH forums about this announcement from Statesman:

We changed the XP range from