f13.net

I was going to reformat this to make it a post here, but I didn't want to embed so many images, considering some link other places. On the off chance you're interested in reading yet another positive take on CoH, and yet another "what does it mean" rant, head on over:

Finally, an MMOG that needs no apology (http://www.grimwell.com/index.php?action=fullnews&id=109)

Well, you might have to apologize that it is combat only.  Which turns out to be a plus to those who like the combat.  It won't be for everyone.  That old niche word again.

I find I mostly apologize for the ingame name for guild.  Most people at best giggle when they hear "supergroup".  Ingame it works because of the huge camp value to everything.  But it is hard to say out of context.

BUT BUT BUT alluvian we are SSSUPER so we need to be in a SSSupergroup but thanks for asking.


Kaid

Should we change the name of "Bat Country" to "This is a Guild kkthx?"

It's tempting.

Better than "Champions of honor and Lightness" or whatever that group I saw the other day was called.  We could pick "The fudgepackers" and be safely less gay than that.  Even though I think using gay as a derogatory term is pretty gay.

My vote was for the Prancing Protectors but nobody ever listens to me.

Kaid

I tried to read it, I really did.  Unfortunately, I couldn't keep my eyes off of that strange dildo shaped device in the upper left corner.  I refreshed and it went away, but I can't stop thinking about it.

Nice write up!

Thanks!

I actually like Bat Country. Dunno why. It resonates, or something. And yea, I don't call us a SuperGroup. Gay, ghey and gä.



Heh, yea, our graphics folk has been messing with things of late.

My favourite Super Hero group name came from a campaign in Heroes Unlimited PnP game.  The team was known as the S.H.I.T....

Super Heroic Intervention Team

hehe.

It's the simple things, eh?

I was in the beta and I played a lot with two testers who had been Doctors during the SWG beta. I made it up 21 levels in 2 weeks of play using common sense with my defender with Storm and Dark . Here are some additional points


Why Lag sucks more than usual - The game has an XP debt for dying. After you go in debt half your experience goes to pay it off and your grind gets even slower

I can do play solo - Yeah but you level much much slower. If you group with 5 others all six of you get xp for each kill. So if 6 solo players kill 10 villains each they each get 10 villains worth of XP. If a team of 6 kill 10 villains each they each get 60 villains worth of XP.

Unique villains and expected ones - There was an evil Eskimo style villain group that is in a zone that looks like something from a Steven King Novel. There is also an oriental group of martial arts as well as a group of Nazi types. So the game has both the expected stereotypes as well as some interesting and unique characters

Replay Value - There are 5 sets of storyline based on the origin types. So if you play the Mutant based missions from level 5-7 then your next character can play the Techno missions from level  5-7. You aren't stuck in one zone whacking Rats

Tards - Yes there are. Worst thing someone can do regularly is kill steal. Its hard to say how bad the release will be because you never know what the online vermin will find to exploit

Making characters - I made a Hillbilly, Orc, Drow, Female with insect looks, tiny demon, and several military style characters. Seemed to be very good

Cool Powers - there is one power that generates a thunderstorm that looks good. The rain powers looked good and so did whirlwind. Even the taunt was kind of cool

I screwed up my character design - Oops you are screwed. There is no redo on your powers or enhancements. So if you create The Forum Flamer and his powers turn out to be poor you can tough it out or start over.

Missions - the missions seemed to offer more variety than other games . However you can still just group and camp out spawn areas if you want

Names - In the beta I saw The Mental Midget, Cowthulhu, Punchin Judy and a bunch of amusing names. There were also people with no imagination who

Best Feeling - a group group of heros can maul opponents who are 2 levels higher in nothing flat. Good gameplay and character design seem to be rewarded

First thing I would tell someone playing from WTO - get movement powers early. Many missions require travel between zones. Walking is slow and dangerous

The one thing you will hate - Death and XP Debt. As you get higher level the leveling slows down a lot. XP debt makes it even worse.

The one thing you will love - the first group of villains you rip a new ahem with your characters powers. Each villain group has vulnerabilities so you may pwn the Hellions while the Clockwork will go orange on you.

Fun thing to do - Bowling for Nazis - There are several powers that do damage and knockback in an area of effect, You can find packed groups of 5th column and use those attacks to knock over as many as possible

Events = Lag

This is my favorite XP distribution system though, which is why it doesn't bother me :) SB was close enough to this that the differences don't matter. Though, of course, SB isn't about PvE.

Additionally, some archetypes solo much better than others. No surprise here of course. At least in the early game, my Blaster and Scrapper could solo one and sometimes two levels above themselves. +End and +Accuracy were requirements though, with the Build-up-esque powers making or breaking the encounters.

In any case, it's a far cry better than games like EQ or SWG that basically screw you for grouping. When I could swarm kite indefinitely (until the updated Bard charm) and rake in more XP in an hour than I could with a few days of grouping, that says something for an XP distribution model, particularly in a massive multiplayer game.

Otherwise, I completely agree with you on everything else :)

Maybe I'm alone on this, but playing a spandex-wearing Extraordinary Man crosses some kind of barely perceivable geek line that I'm not going near.  For some reason, playing a Halfing Druid is fine, tho.

There are plenty of non-spandex costume choices available.

What struck me about this game is how well it seemed to fit that ever elusive casual gamer.  You can log in, bowl for thugs, take a mission, log out, then come back and do it again with no feeling of "gotta do one more." Just a damned enjoyable time while you're online no matter how much time you have to kill.  Makes a damn fine casual play MMOG.

I'm actually referring to the whole genre, not the actual form-fitting leotards.

You're here at all.

Without starting another thread, I figured I would pose a question and then toss my thoughts on it about COH.

King's Row and King's Row2 : Breaking the persistant world?

As with a lot of COH, this was the first instance that I truely felt broke the Persistant window that seems to have been setup by UO, EQ, DAOC, AC... yadda yadda...  Multiple Zones for load balancing the servers.  I, for one, do not mind the fact that having to select which zone instance.  I certainly removes one of the veils of preceived persistance, but it loosens the lag (at least in theory).  I wonder again if this is not another good step, similar to the Sidekick system, though not as revolutionary.  But it allows for the FUN and not the SUCK.

I've generally been opposed to Instancing because I felt it broke up a community too much. So many players prefer to avoid the social stuff that sometimes they need to be compelled to meet others.

However, having seen (http://www.grimwell.com/index.php?action=fullnews&id=100) how well it works in EQLive, and the way it really increases the playability of CoH, I'm willing to concede I was quick to judge, and judged poorly  :)

There's only two things I wish CoH had in relation to this (I've got many wishes ;) ):
[list=1]

• A meta-broadcast channel that covered all instances of all zones
• A way to create even just one more chat window.[/list:o]
  As it is, I've already had to turn off the damage chat span, and I've tried to play even without the System Messages.

Que?

Oh please God no. No no no. While I haven't been as bothered by the stupid in CoH as much as other games, I do not want to give Johnny ToucheshisNutz the ability to come into my living room with whatever inanity he can think of in his spastic moments of Tourette's Syndrome seizures. I think there are more than enough ways to find people and congregate for those not already ensconced in a social circle or supergroup.

I've also turned off the damage and power recharge spam, and I don't miss it one bit.

Heh, don't make the mistake thinking that this is anything other than personal preference.  After all, Fantasy characters are just superheroes in a world with elves, faeries and magic!

Heh. /Request, /Broadcast or /Metabroadcast, are all shades of the same thing. The only way to avoid asshats is to turn those channels off too.

Which, believe me, I've been tempted to do... and suspect will do come Wednesday.

But it was just a thought to help the raw newbs. Maybe the current channels are enough, and it takes exactly one mistaken choice at the subway terminal to realize that yes, you do choose between different instances of Atlas Park.

I'm partial to SuperFunk.  Simple, yet elegant.

Look! A game that allows you to remove the numbers, as it were. Okay, yeah, the numbers fly above their head to show the damage you did, but this was a major goal of AC2 and their damage system. Show damage numbers above the head and show a graphical indication (CoH does not do this) of damage on the NPC model in order to do away with staring at a chat box with stats flying by. It appears that in CoH, this works because of the numbers above the head for damage and the health bar for the NPC right above its head. That makes three of us now who play without damage messages in our chat boxes. Nice, nice, nice.

Souk, you know the HP and END bars of all NPCs and PCs are displayed by default on mouseover and mouseclick right?

Additionally, CoH does a far better job than AC2 of rendering what an NPC might be afflicted with at any given time. I've seen an NPC with a Fire DoT, caught in a Fire Root, an Ice Root, suffering from some acidic DoT I don't recognize as well as react to a DD. All at the same time, and without confusion. Spells were obviously created to interact with each other very well.

I'd turn off the floating numbers too if I could. I need that HP and END bar, and the above spells and that's it. Can't think of a game in this genre where I could so safely ignore the chatlog. Very FPSish.

Yes, I know about on mouseover and mouse click as well. I agree that the spell effects are very defined (and very cool besides) so you can tell at any glance what is affecting the mob. I meant that AC2 actually shows varying degrees of bloodiness and cuts on a mob as you whittle down its health and you could technically do away with the health bar then, too. Although in CoH this might not be the best thing as it'd be hard to see through all those spell effects, but that's what I meant with the AC2 thing.

Ah ok, I get it now. I actually didn't know AC2 did that. Has it always (I quit just after launch)? I agree that it probably wouldn't be the best for CoH. Perhaps it's telling that no other game has tried this. Maybe more people are playing third-person than first, and therefore too zoomed out to notice such minute details?

That's pretty shitty design.  Welcome to balance hell.  Think AC1 (though I can only assume that the base balance is about 37 million times better than AC1 because CoH was not designed by coked-up monkeys).
Presumably, they'll change it and add some sort of respec option, since there is roughly a 0% chance of balancing all the skill combos even decently.

I am glad to hear people are excited about the game.  I can't get into the superhero genre myself, but more $ to the industry is more $ to the industry.

Yes, that feature was in beta and straight through release to this day. It was actually very noticable in third person view, which is how I always played the game. True, first person perspective is probably more character immersive, but until I can actually have peripheral vision as that character, I prefer the third person perspective. But I digress. I don't know that it's telling that no other game tried it. I'm actually disappointed that no others have because it, like CoH, allowed me to concentrate on the graphics and the action (especially combined with TeamSpeak for communication since I used it for both) and not have to worry about the numbers and crap spamming through the chat window.

You CANNOT make a useless character at character generation.  You can make a character you don't LIKE, but you can do that in ANY of these games (SWG and UO let you change everything except the race/sex).  It is the same as pickng the 'wrong' class in EQ or DAOC, or ac2, or any of these games.  It isn't 'wrong' it is just not something you might like.  And at least you can find out pretty early, due to VERY fast initial leveling, if the powersets you picked are fun to you.

Repsecs are coming to the game, but I suspect it will be for swapping powers only.  MAYBE enhancement slots, but I doubt you will be able to swap primary or secondary powersets.

I haven't played nearly enough CoH to know if there's a basically "broken" template combination or not. I can say that a look through all templates though can easily lead players to making bad decisions. Like, putting a Fighting Power Pool on a Fire Blaster probably isn't the best idea. By the time the character's in their teens, they simply don't have the hit points to go toe-to-toe with anything, and the Fighting Power Pool is melee combat stuff.

Additionally, players can only choose one new power every two levels. That's it. If a player makes a mistake, they live with it for two levels until they hopefully unlock something that can make up for it, or they re-roll.

As with all such linear character advancement models, obviously it's best to do a lot of research up front or, failing that, make your mistakes early.

So yes, the lack of respeccing is a problem. Players will experiment. They will make mistakes, particularly those who don't scour the forums or fansites or who weren't in the beta. They'll either reroll or accept a certain amount of gimpage.

Personally, I'd be happy if every two levels players could not only learn a new power, but they could also choose one power to forget. That alone would make a world of difference. Even though most archetypes don't come into their own until the teens or 20s, there's a fair chance players will know how much they enjoy a character well before then. So undoing one or two minor mistakes won't totally break the game.

Crap Darniaq, you should suggest that.

Not that I think every other level it being possible, but hell, even on every forth level or every 10th it would be cool.  Would allow some great flexability.

I have made one bad decision so far in my Fire/Fire Blaster build, but then it really is not a mistake, just does not fit a Blaster well, I took the leadership damage add power, but I go through my endurance so fast the damn thing drops like a rock almost every fight.

Fargull, many of the endurance drain powers don't come into their own until later when you can socket dual and single origin endurance reducers to them.  They are very hard to use at low levels, but that will not always be the case.  Plus the drain is constant and you get more endurance as you level I believe.

Alluvian,

Yepper.  Kinda got that figured.  An option to move it to hasten would have been cool though.. course, then I am dumping endurance faster, but able to punch that damage out the Yass.

Yup.  And that is why I will welcome the respec system with open arms when it shows up.  I think it would be good if they manage it within 3 months or so.  I suspect tailoring and improved supergroups are first on their list.

Four. I also turn off /request and /broadcast, but then I always did that in EQ, too.

A respec option would be nice, something I've always called for. I particularly liked AO's way of offering respec every 10 levels or so, though with this system it may not need be so comprehensive. One problem might be handling the enh. slots, though I guess you could respec them as well.

I'm knocking on wood that I'm pretty happy with my character, though I'm eagerly waiting some self-buffs out of my energy manipulation line to make me feel better about it...

I have damage, combat, broadcast, and request (the last 2 most of the time) turned off as well.

I have the obscenity filter turned off. Better performance boost than the other things mentioned.

It's good to hear this does become useful later.I've been considering it for my Ice Controller / Storm Summoner.

The mistake I wish I could undo on my Fire/Fire Blaster is Combustion. The Point Blank Area Effect is fine with enough enhancement mods, but I've long since stopped using it for the amount of melee damage I've taken. I sooo wish I took Rain of Fire instead. But now I've gotta wait to level 16 before taking it because 14 is Fly. I'm always grouped anyway and generally with an Ice Controller who gets the AOE Root that compelled me to make my Ice Controller alt :)

Couple notes...

Bought three DOE endurance enhancers last night, one went in Fireball, another in Fireblast and the last in Fly.  Now I can make it through battle without going through End with the leadership damage buff running.  I also only use a little end flying, very little (Need to shut of any run power, as that drains End also).  I am going to add a second DOE Endurance to Fly as I heard it allows regen of end flying.  I can not conceive of not taking fly as a Blaster.  I have way to much control and using the Z axis outside to advantage is just way to good.  Also allows scouting in doors.

Side note, if you can team with a rad defender or controller that has the speed up power, you can become a damage machine since your End returns so fast.

Yeah, but when grouped with a controller is when rain is at it's best.  HUGE area of effect and if they can't run it does great damage.

I took combust in beta and soon it was off my main hotkey bar.  So this time I took flares instead.  Much happier with it as a cheap way to finish off an almost dead foe or as a 1-2 punch with fireblast to wear down a boss.

Don't sweat it too much.  I hear combust damage is being upped, if they move it around the fire breathing damage it will be sweet.  Otherwise the game will get respec at some point where you can swap it out for something else.

In the meantime you are still far from gimped without fire rain.

Hence my lamenting of taking Combustion :) It's still good, and yea, it's not like I feel gimped or anything. I'd have long since re-rolled, and 12 isn't that hard to get again if I wanted to rush it (I don't). I've got two +Accuracy and four +Damage in both Fire Ball and Fire Blast, with two +Damages one one +Accuracy in Fire Breath. Most are 12-15s. With Hasten, I can pretty much take out whatever the Ice Controller's got rooted while the melees work on the rest. It's atypical for us to have less than 15 NPCs to deal with at any given time on missions, and we basically always do missions.

Now that I've hit 12 with about 11k Influence, I'm going to see about picking up a few dual origin enhancements. I may finally pick up some Endurance reducers this time though. I basically live by the 10 mana potions I carry around at any given time when I'd so much rather have +Damage and +Accuracy.

But oh the flaming damage I could unleash with Rain of Fire modded up for Damage. Woe is me :)

Gimping is easy to prevent with some research and friends to ask. My earlier comments are really about the pure newbs who come to CoH as their first MMOG, and therefore are not predisposed to research and may not know anyone :)

I've played several toons with my primary to level 12 and I'm still not seeing what the raves are about with this game.  For all that I can see, it is like the love child of GTA and AO.  I've played solo, in small, and in large groups and it's getting pretty repetitive.  Get mission, kill stuff, plug in enhancements, repeat.

To those of you that really love this game I ask: Am I judging the game too hastily by only having made it to level 12 or is this pretty much what there is to look forward to with a steeper treadmill?

I'm not condemning the game by any means, the flight and combat systems are pretty interesting.  I just don't see anything all that revolutionary that is commanding all the rave reviews.

BAD DQ!

Anyway, I carry 5 heals and 4 'mana', leaving one open for whatever drops, which I usually use immediately.

Oh, I'm fairly sure nobody here thinks CoH is revolutionary. Besides being MMOGers, we're all some form of experienced gamers, and CoH pulls ideas from many.

But the rave reviews come from one simply reality: it fucking works.

This isn't a highly over-promised and ultimately horrifically under-delivered grand virtual social experiment. It's just a game. A very simple game at that, with the two or three things you noted as the only goals.

I think we're still reeling from the collective shock of not having to apologize for the game (http://www.grimwell.com/index.php?action=fullnews&id=109). Finally, a game where we can actually discuss minor balance issues and stylistic considerations without having to prefice with things like "once you get passed the lag" or "once you get the client to launch at all".

The game is what it is. It also stable and playable enough for gamers to actually determine whether they like it, based on enjoyment, rather than patience.

It's kinda like the twisted antithesis of the discussion of the other NC soft launch (http://forums.f13.net/viewtopic.php?t=409&start=70) :)

Hmm..

Revolutionary, I find this in a couple aspects, the Z-Axis and the Sidekick system.

Yes, the game dynamic changes around 15th level.  And from what I have read again around 24th level.  Everything becomes larger than life.  Hell, last night was when my blaster came into his own.  Went through a group of blue (about 7) three white lt's, and one yellow boss in less than three minutes and I did probably 60% of the damage.  My fireball now does between 28-40 to those hit with the primary blast, 6-11 on the secondary, and 3-6 on the last two HOT pings...  Rain only does 1 damage still, but my fireblast ranges from 38-44 now.

Wham, Bam.... the team was just standing there going what happened.  Our primary healer kept asking to let the tank run in for about a half a minute so the healer could do something.  Course, the next mission we ran into some purple clockworks, and that took a bit more tactics.

Blasters soloing is a thing to behold. But it's not a universal preeminence. Against a group of meleers, it's just a matter of time and a Catch a Breath or two, even if their Orange (missing is the biggest problem with Reds). But I've generally avoided even-conning Clockworks and Vahziowhatevers. Even with Hover, I'd just eat through health inspirations. And getting into teen-level stuff, I find Orange-conning meleers just as doable, but even-conning ranged fighters problematic.

I do like helping friends finish kill-count missions though. Last night we switched outdoor zones to find a gang we knew was more prevalent in Perez Park. It took my other three group members about 4 minutes longer than me to zone in (some server dealio I think, others were complaining). By the time they zoned, the mission was done.

But it's situational, as I assume everything in CoH is.

This is what I was interested in seeing.  Playing a scrapper as my primary does pose some situations that may be different than encountered by a blaster (i.e. flying more a means of transportation than a combat strategy) but the "larger than life" does seem like it would add some fun to the current scheme.  

Between your and Darniaq's comments a couple of things strike me: that I should a) give the game a little more time before coming to a conclusion and b) that I need to lighten up and just have fun rather than analyze everything.

As for lag, I've been playing on Protector, Victory, and a few other servers just to see how population affects gameplay.  I have to admit that Protector is nice as the lower population reduces lag pretty significantly.  With time, they may have these issues ironed out on the other servers as well.

Go find a Brick and tell me the tank's are easy.  When you take the boulder in the chops, you will be thinking you need more health inspirations, EVEN with hover.  Fly makes this issue a little better, but taking a yellow Brick out is not that easy.... though, I guess if I had a sniper shot I might not be in that boat....

I have to concur that the game changed completely for me at level 14 when I gained flying. And in a very good way, I really felt like the Cosmic Anomaly who flew in from the depths of space rather than the guy who took the tram in from brooklyn.


That's the tactic of this die-hard mmog hater (the treadmill/foozle variety, anyway). It's a game about comic books. I treat it as such, a light and shallow but fun and exciting game. CoH is the comics and EQ is tolkein (sorry, not really, but only for purposes of comparison!). One is light and fun, the other takes time to get into and is a lot more work to get through. Just my take on the whole thing.

Hehe. Well, at least you're in the right place for that. I get that way about Planetside. Fun as hell to play, but when I log off, I'm wondering what I'm paying for :)


That's why I said "it's situational" :D I've encountered Bricks, but only with three other blasters, two tanks and a controller to, err, back me up.

That's funny, talking about a hover blaster not fighting clockworks. I actually will wade into most clockworks as a scrapper, because they hurt my endurance more than they actually damage me. Put 3 white clockworks together and I can take them all with more than half life left, even more if I'm lucky. I'll just be stamina drained. But 3 Vaz cadavers will require me to pop off some damn heal inspirations or run away to heal many times, because of the damage they do.

And the vahz cadavers/abominations are walking jokes to a solo blaster.  They are too stupid to properly follow and their range attack is hideously innacurate.  They will be chasing you and then just stop and wander the other way, if you are solo you can EASILY pull them out in singles or pairs.  In fact I find them boring as hell solo.  But I HATE clockworks, hehe.  That endurance drain is a royal pain in the ass (not too hard, but annoying as a non-hover blaster)

More than clockworks though, the WORST standard non-boss enemy is the mortificator for me.  Enough hp to take a beating and they are very accurate and damaging with their ranged poison darts.  Couple that with the snare effect.  As a non-hover blaster, that snare messes me up bigtime.  I rely a LOT on my freedom of movement.

Those mortificators mess up my tank.  Those darts, plus a lucky hit from the zombie vomit of one of their pals, and I'm down to half life.

Clockworks are cake though.  Actually, anything that is willing to go toe to toe with me isn't that bad.

The mortificator can go to hell and die.  I hate those fuckers.  Hover, Fly, they stop that shit dead.  Makes me think Teleport is the only option to get the F out, maybe super leap.

Clockworks seem to either be less resistant to fire or I just hit them easier because I generally dont have an issue with them.  Except the Tesla Ball.

Oh, and F those flying COT Deamon thingy's in Faultline.  Damn thing dark tenticled me flying by and a whole group came and ate my arse.

Give me trolls anyday.  BURN baby BURN.

Mmmmm, trolls.

I used them to level from 12-14 in one night. So easy. Find a group of 3, 2 will run away. Find a group of 1, one will run away. These aren't groups of minions, we're talking Lt's and Bosses or any combiantion thereof, it's wonderful times with the trolls. My level 10 blaster likes dropping an m30 in and watching them scatter even though they're all red-pink to me.

Yes, Kaid and I had too much fun in beta nuking trolls.  He holds them still, I nuke them to the stone age.  A whole group of evens would take maybe 3/4 of my endurance to kill every single one.  The bosses and lts would be left, but they are not that scary at all.

What I really hate about those mortificators is if you aren't careful, they'll go revive a cadaver when you aren't paying attention. You're concentrating on a mortificator over here and suddely you'll see green healing number appear over at the mort that you missed. Then you have to kill that damn cadaver again while it pukes on you.