f13.net

Because it's silly to keep making threads, but some of them are misleading with their titles.  So here's where I'm dropping all the news I find and I suggest others do the same.

Recent interview with Statesman: http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=60783

For the most part, it's what you've heard before with a couple tidbits that I do not believe have been released to non-beta testers:
"Reading the local rag will give you ideas for crimes to commit"
"Recover certain items from quests and store them in your base for an experience boost and you may be raided, and enemies can teleport directly in to do so."
"Emmert also says to expect an "amazing announcement" on pricing in the near future, chuckling when somebody suggests it might be the amazing suggestion that CoH players end up paying double. It won't be."

This would be the 'Items Of Power' referenced before.  Having one in your SG Base allows others to raid your base at certain times of day, by other SGs.  This may be the first mention of bonuses related to owning an item of power, tho.


That's good news, I think.

Alkiera

Speaking of - I just got a press release from BHPR UK (Barrington Harvey press agency) about the CoV deluxe DVD set. Yea, it'll cost more. Yea, it comes with in-game items. But most of all...

...HERO-CLIX. FUCK YEA.

Are you serious?  Or are you being funny?  I can never tell....

I'm all business. Except those few fleeting moments when the only thing that can satisfy my cravings is a peanut butter & banana sandwich on toasted multigrain.

Ah... well, unfortunately, I'm not getting the Collector's Edition or I'd give you my hero-clix.  As far as I'm concerned, things like that are just dust collectors and I can't be arsed to collect dust.  Not all of us have a     
(http://www.divasplendorium.com/images/prod/French_Maid_B.jpg) , you know.

(http://www.cyber-cinema.com/bestseller/t3stoogesjustmoe.jpg)

Err... I think we've fallen into the wrong thread. 

The image association thread is <--- thataway.

Do you...uhhh...speaka Japanese?

Not image association. I just like the maid.

[EDIT] I'm so sorry, Signe. It's like....Everything I say to you is lost in translation.

I'll try to keep your head from spinning.

Here, have a glass of water

(http://www.glass-pipes-water-bongs.com/newim/pyrex-bongs/glass-water-bong-3.jpg)

Oops...Wrong glass. Wrong water.

(http://www.ewatertek.ca/images/glass%20water.jpg)


Alrighty then..

As for Hero Clix, the CoV figures look lame. Just like the CoH ones (except Statesman). They need to go with another company.

Thanks... the two go well together nicely though.

(http://www.drinkbongwater.com/images/Bong%20Water%20Cow2.jpg)

I don't think they're particularly attractive knick knacks, either.  I used to love looking at those little D&D models my nephew painted so nicely, but these are kind of cheap looking.  Of course, I don't much like knick knacks anyway.

From what I've read of the actual game mechanics of the characters, the Ghost Widow HeroClix figure is supposed to be immensely useful.  So if you're actually into the game and think spending all that money to get one (which, if I remember correctly, won't be offered elsewhere but IS considered legal for tournament use) is worth it, then by all means go nuts.

That being said, I know nothing about HeroClix, I was just bored and reading reviews one day trying to learn more about it.

I think a course in underwater basket weaving would probably prove more useful, Llava.

Well understand that I was doing this research when I still had a shot at getting the City of Villains web content editor job.  I didn't get it, so now I can say that that's what it was.  I wanted to be well-versed in the various media into which the property is travelling so I could sound informed about these things instead of writing a news update about HeroClix that basically says "I don't know what the fuck this is, but here's a link, enjoy!"

Handle. Off.

Just wondering, Llava: What exactly would someone get for 80 bucks in addition to this (and the aforementioned knick knack)?

I was also under the impression, though I may be wrong, that the Collector's edition unlocks all of the various pre-order helmet options while the regular version only unlocks one.  Like I said, though, I could be completely wrong on that, don't feel like tracking it down to find out at the moment.

What's this thread about again?

General news and updates, I think??

It is Llava's Official Wibble About Stuff Thread.

You people are all smartasses and don't deserve updates.

Second wave of beta invites went out yesterday, check your emails.  Still inviting 12+ monthers at this stage.  There'll be one more wave to get all of them.

Is anyone else in the beta test yet?

I don't think it's against the NDA to admit I was invited to join the beta.  Beyond that, I cannot confirm or deny.

Alkiera

That's about all that's not against the NDA.  I'll pm you my name when I actually decide who I want to be.

Be - "The Good Signe" - and your bio can say. The Good Signe - The evil one was REALLY REALLY evil. I'm only mostly evil I don't do anything to the corpses.

5 minute Superman Returns (http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=3662672&page=1&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1#3662672)

Heh.

Whoever "kawaiikitty" is, he/she is brilliant.

From her posts on the CoV boards, she seems quite strange indeed.

She has this linked in her signature. (http://www.kiwichan.com/temp/dokuro.avi)

If the figure is anything like the Statesman one I got as swag at GenCon....it's apparently very very overpowered.  I showed the Statesman one to someone who played and got a long spiel about why it was good and whatnot.

Apparently, the collectors will pay good cash on eBay for ultra-rare ones like the two Co* ones.

As if I didn't think stuff from Japan was weird enough....

omfg I don't know how I haven't seen that.

I believe the english version is named "Beatdown Angel Dokuro"

Yea, already got the entire show. That is some fucked up shit. See, Jungle Wa is just funny. This show - just Japanese.

She sounds perfect for you, Schild.  Do you want me to try and set you up?

That doesn't make sense.

It does to me.

(http://www.coh.com/news/images/web_arachnos.jpg)

There's a City of Heroes novel?  Good grief!!!

Here's (http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/cityofvillains/preview_6133023.html) lots and lots and lots of information on CoV.

Next zone update revealed. (http://www.cityofheroes.com/paper/newspaper30.html)  Or, at least, the name and fiction behind it.  I like this one, actually.  City of Heroes doesn't frequently address the "failed hero" theme, which is one I think should thrive in a setting where almost anyone can try to be a hero.  If the last few zones are any indication, though, we'll have a series of missions leading us to find out what "really happened" in this zone.

The story, however, seems more than a little akin to the recent New Orleans situation.  I'm not sure if that's a good idea.  Clips:


To my knowledge, FEMA has never been mentioned in the CoH world before so it seems strange to bring it up now.

Also:


But at least it was destroyed by a radioactive blast and not a hurricane.  Don't think they have too many hurricanes in Rhode Island.

More than likely this is just coincidence, as I do know that this zone has been planned since before the disaster (well before).  I can't say that with certainty for the story, but more than likely it applies.

I am not sure how you'd handle FEMA in a world where a good chuck of your population are WMDs.

I believe Marvel calls them PMDs, or Persons of Mass Destruction.

The government has the FBSA (Federal Bureau of Superpowered Affairs) keeping files on all that stuff.  Not sure how good a job they're doing, given that vast areas of Paragon City alone are completely uninhabitable, superpowered crime is a fact of life, and god knows how the rest of the cities in the world are doing.

I seem to recall having to rescue a FEMA working during one of the newbie missions.

The Circle were raiding a FEMA office to get the plans for the Paragon City Dam - that's one of the first missions in Positron's task force.

It's now an escort mission, meaning you have to shepherd the workers outside and as long as they're traveling with you you get ambushed by the CoT every so often.

(Fortunately they've still got pedestrian immunity.)

--GF

Well, I stand corrected.  I generally zone out on Positron.

Some selected parts from the "Ask Positron" Q&A post: (http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=Dev&Number=3704941&bodyprev=#Post3704941)

Uh oh, Realm Abilities anyone ?

MUDFLATION... HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

The ArchEnemy system sounds like something great that will be badly implemented. There will probably only be 5-10 possible archnemesis to encounter when really it should be some sort of algorithm that makes the enemy based on the oppisite abilities and costume of your character.

ArchEnemy system does sound pretty damn awesome.

I'm not against a Realm Ability like system for CoH.  That assumes, of course:
1) BALANCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
2) The ceilings aren't so high that the catasses are infinitely more powerful than the casual.

Anything I can do solo or with a single group that takes 2 hours or less a pop (like the whole system doesn't have to be doable in 2 hours, but there should be break points after about 2 hours of play built into the system allowing teams to break up, reform, characters to go do different stuff, other teams to form, or just let everyone log off for a couple weeks and then come back and pick up where they left off).

Personally, I'd really LIKE to dust off my 50.  I spent a lot of time on him, but every time I log him in the only thing I get is more influence... and he already has about 30 million.  I don't need more.  Give me something else.  I didn't play him to 50 because I dislike playing the character.

There was one when I was there. Maybe five years ago? More? It didn't do that much damage. I remember standing out in the backyard, leaning into the wind and being vaguely disappointed.

But aside, one of the devs spoke about the synchronicity of Siren's Call and New Orleans:


http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Number=3692711&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&vc=1

Another Statesman interview. (http://www.boomtown.net/en_uk/articles/art.view.php?id=9290)  I don't think I'll make new threads for them anymore or copy them here.  They're just not that important.  Go read it yourself.

Dammit.

Some cool stuff in that interview that I didn't know about.

PvP between villains and heroes (battling at supergroup bases) sounds neat.  I hope it works.

Ability to go rogue and change sides.

But I'm not quite sure what this exchange means:


"not looking at nerfing the power per se."

Per se?

Why not give hasten and stamina as inherent powers for all, instead of being in a powerpool?  I choose them to a) avoid downtime and b) to be heroic!  It increases my fun.  I'm all for increasing fun, particularly mine.

Oh, and I think he's got it wrong when he thinks the game is too easy and easy=boring.  That's not it.  Tedious = boring, and the game gets tedious at certain levels, which has nothing to do with easy.

I5 looks big - numerous changes.  Looks good mostly - although I am surprised Blasters got a boost to damage and hit points.

He does seem to like to chat to the UK lately.  I think they must still like him over there.  The I5 patch notes are somewhere around here, in this mess of mostly useless threads.  I'm in the CoV beta so I can't say much of anything and I'm still getting a lot of new info from these interviews and stuff.  However, I will say this... I have no idea, from the interviews, the beta test, the gamespot splash... nowhere... what the time frame is for all this stuff.  I read one interview and Statesman blabs about something and makes it sound like the implementation is right around the corner.  I read another interveiw, not long after, and it's "some time down the road, in the future, after release"... it makes me a bit nuts.  I don't know if he's mealy mouthed and indecisive or a spin doctor verging on out and out lying.  He confuses me... not in that sexy mysterious way that sekret agents do, either.

Sonic Resonance buff effects being changed.

It won't strobe anymore, just have the mostly transparent spinning rings.  It was making people sick.  Personally, I had no problem with it but I could absolutely envision one of my friends throwing up her guts after looking at it for a few seconds.  She couldn't play Guild Wars due to motion sickness, this would make her head explode.

Also:


Let's see... not many other updates.  Positron made mention of one of the reasons behind the Phase Shift change- and that's Masterminds.  Frankly, I can see his point.  A Mastermind could leave phase shift on just about all the time and still operate at near full ability with their pets with absolutely no personal risk.  So that throws the "this is a PvP only change that's being forced on PvE!" theory out the window.

Yeah, I saw that as the reason behind the change the second I got into the beta, but obviously couldn't say anything about it on the boards due to the NDA.  I didn't like the change because I'm an explorer type and loved Phase Shift to get around and see new things, but it's obvious they absolutely had to put a limit in because of Masterminds.  Here's another part of his post that I found promising:


I was arguing pretty strongly that Phase Shift needed to activate like Invisibility or Temp Invulnerablity: pretty quick with no root.  It's nice to see a dev agrees, now they just need to patch it in.

She is a 350 pound, computer geek.  So yeah, go ahead and set em up.  :mrgreen:

Gilgamesh, CoH Web Content Editor (everything you see written on coh.com is him, fiction and all), just quit apparently.  He made his goodbye post here (http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=general&Number=3797724&bodyprev=#Post3797724).  They apparently already have a replacement (which sucks because my eyes started sparkling like a vulture's when I realized that Gil's position might be open- my hopes were dashed!  Dashed I tell you!) in mind, though as they haven't actually given a name I think it's someone new.

Not a gameplay change, but for those of us who read the articles on the main site it is important.

That guy did a fantastic job.  That's one thing that CoH got really, really right, and it draws me into the game the way I want to be drawn in.  I don't like to watch the bar; I like to experience the story.  CoH does a tremendous job with the story.

I wish him good luck, and hope his replacement is as good.

On the spawn rate topic:

Two spawns a day is too slow?

How about two levels a month for casual gamers?

Christ.

You mean for Sally?

Sally is a monster that dies on one hit (she submerges again).  And to get the badge for defeating her, you have to defeat her twice.  So you can bet that each time she appears, one player will only get one half of what they need to get the badge for her, and that badge is part of an accolade.  So yeah, two spawns a day was wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy too slow.

Yea, I understood. I was comparing their concern of that spawn rate to their complete lack of concern for the crappy grind.  WoW has shown us that a game will keep players if it has a proper ding generation cycle. CoH has a ding cycle that is far too slow. Needs more ding.

But its just a badge, you have no right to get it.

The same lack of concern for the crappy grind that made them bump experience post-25 by 30%, right?

The only time I ever really "ground" for anything in CoH was, paradoxically, when I was close to dinging 36, 41, or 46 and thus leaving contacts behind forever. The reason I say paradoxically was that I basically suicided enough to go out fighting crime with max debt, stealthing through missions whenever possible to get minimal experience, just so I wouldn't leave a contact behind. Instead of grinding XP I was grinding missions... and I _still_ managed to miss missions I wanted to see. Make of that what you will.

One year later, the game is still fun on the atomic level (punch things in the face while looking really good). Maybe that makes me some kind of degenerate gamer or something.

--GF

I should have been more clear. Levels 10 through the end.

Apparently, you have no right to get to 50 without 6-12 months of "work" either.

The grind is having to do too much of the same thing to get to the next ding cycle. It really becomes glaringly obvious when you are working on debt.

ok, not defending CoH level grind.  It sucks; it's pointless.  But a badge is just a shiney, so the grind in this case isn't preventing you from playing the game or experiancing content. This is exactly where the grind should be, unimportant collector items.

Pre-I5, I agreed with Schild about the grind.  No more.

My controller is now 25, mostly soloed up.  I never watch the xp bar, because I go for the story arcs.  I'm outlevelling my contacts faster than I can get all the story arcs for my level.  I skipped Positron on this toon, and have 3 task forces to do before I outlevel those.

Maybe this will change at 30, I don't know, but for now with the changes to mission xp, it seems fine to me.  Much faster than it used to be.  But I rarely die with this toon (ill/ff) because I have so many escapes.  If I died a lot, I might feel differently (but then I'd have more influence with which to buy SOs).

Without an endgame, there really isn't a grind, at least if you're interested in following the stories.  I expect all that to change once team pvp enters the picture.

The searing irony is that there's nothing to grind _to_. I mean, maybe travel power? Cape? But even that dies out around 20. Even that 30% boost seems to have been designed to balance out the shifting down two cons most heroes at that level would end up doing in the wake of I5.

Why does the thought process go "maybe this game that sucks would be better if I got 10 seconds more sparkly per hour of suck" rather than "I should stop playing this game; it sucks"? As if it's some terrible weakness that when a game stops being fun you stop playing it.

--GF

Yeah, and those people who like a game so much they forget other people have perfectly valid reasons for disliking it? Asstards, the lot of 'em.  :-D

It isn't that I'm grinding to 50 or to some endgame. I'm grinding because I want a new power, because I want to be able to fight a new way. There's way too much space between the rewards cycle of being able to add a new power or a new enhancement. Without loot of some kind (and I fucking hate lootcentric games, but...) to add to your avatar's power, you are stuck with chunks of time where nothing on your character really changes.

The Believer badge you get for Sally is part of an accolade you can get in Croatoa (for getting every Croatoa badge- Pumpkin Master, Pumpkin King, Cap Buster, Spellbinding, Bane of Danaan, Haunted, Giant Slayer, Alumnus, Cabalist, Ten Times The Victor, and Believer).  Once you obtain this accolade, you gain a new click power that increases your regeneration and recovery, while lowering your recharge times.  I don't know the recharge on this power.  But it's a very nice "Oh crap" button, and everyone has a right to expect it to be within their character's grasp.

Ok, my bad, I got a bunch of badges, but I got neither jack nor shit for them.  At this rate, I don't think I am going even if CoV doesn't raise the fee, things like that would skew PvP.

Accolades have been in as long as badges.  You can check a number of sites to see which badges add up to which accolades.  Most of them are handy, but not to be relied upon.  The Crey Freeze Pistol, for instance, has a nice slow on it, but has a recharge time of about 40 minutes.  I would imagine something similar for the Croatoa accolade.

Some add passive bonuses.  The Atlas Medallion, for instance, raises your maximum endurance by 5 points.  Some others raise maximum health by 5%.  Little stuff like that which is nice, but hardly unbalancing.

And then toss in that pretty much every accolade is attainable with just a bit of effort.  As long as you know which badges to get.

hmm, thanks for the info., Ya, not coming back, just more stuff to grind to be competive.

Accolades?  What?

I had no idea such a thing was in.  Hmm.  Cool.  Cool?  Hmm.

Seriously?

They've been around since badges.

Never noticed that tab on your badge menu that says "Accolades"?

Well, here's a link that shows most of them, though I think it's missing the new Croatoa one.

http://www.unseen.net/coh/badges.php#Accolade

EDIT

Here's a much better compilation, scroll down to Accolades:
http://www.dtsimage.com/coh/badges.php

Seriously.  Thanks!

I guess not everyone's a new whore like me.  :(  Crap, I'm a whore.

Are you implying that some of us are old whores?  That would be Llava, that would!

Er.

News whore.  I meant News Whore.

And hey, while I'm news whoring-


http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/051006/55715.html?.v=1

Also from that article


So there you go.  Buy the box, and if you're already paying monthly for CoH then you have nothing else to pay.  Personally, though, I would've given 5 extra slots... since there are 5 new ATs.

Well they got my money, assuming I don't burn out on the CoH-style gameplay before CoV comes out.

Yeah that 5% boost to max HP = UBAR COMPETITIVE!@!!!!

 :roll:

Yesterday, on the EU site, I read they wouldn't be raising the fee and just assumed it would be the same for the US.  I wouldn't bother with the game if they had.  As it is, I'm sure I'll resub before it runs out this month.  I don't play very often, but when I do I always enjoy it.

Lots of little advantages stack up to become big ones. Plus little advantages can make big difference in win/lose due to the predictable nature rpg combat.  But now that I think about it, the uber-enhancements probably do more than accolades.

I am glad they didn't drink the cool-aid.

Glad to see they finally announced a reasonable pricing scheme. I still think it's rather disingenuous to say that you are getting two games for the price of one, since you really aren't. But hey, it's marketing. Lies are the life's breath of marketers.

I may actually buy CoV then, if the beta thrills me (and I get in).

But isn't feeling the "need" to "grind to be competitive" just another way of drinking the kool aid?  I mean certainly, I approach CoH from the mindset of "I'll get there when I get there."  I don't really care about levelling so much as reading through story arcs.  Eventually, I level and get a nifty reward.  Sometimes I get temporary powers and that's rather entertaining.  For me at least, CoH is the only game where I don't feel like I MUST level to be competitive because I don't see it as being competitive.

It's just something fun that I do.  Sometimes I find a group, sometimes I solo.  I always have fun.

YMMV and obviously does.

Hmmm... they could add repair costs  :-D

You also get a free month, even with an upgrade... which is nice.  The news is also up at the  PlayNC  (http://plaync.com/about/2005/10/ncsoft_unveils_2.html) site. 

You kinda "need" to unless you think being fodder is fun.

I am coming from more of a PvP mind-set, since that'd be the reason why I'd return.  Its the only thing that holds my attention past the afterglow.  If I came back my goal would be to have get to fun/fair PvP asap. So what is required to have a fair/fun PvP in CoH/V?  level to 50, get the best 4 or 5 accolades, and a couple dozen top notch enhancements, and guild with 20+ members with the same?

Since they stayed sane with their pricing(which is what I was referring to in the kool-aid reference), I'll probably keep watching and see how things shake out. But it seems to be going the the route of DAoC and that's not a good thing.

How are you not getting two games for the price of one?

Yes, you have to buy the CoV box.  But then you can play both sides.

What am I missing?

Given where you are coming, I don't understand what a non-grindy mmog would look like.  A FPS?  Guild Wars?

Seems like the genre will always trouble you as being grindy, yes?

I'd say because reports on information in the beta make it sound like there is too much reused content to really call it a new game.  The powersets, for instance (which have been publicly released), are like 75% old sets.  I could go into more detail about the sets, but NDA.

Tazel-
You're wrong.  All the health accolades would add up to, as a blaster/defender/controller, about one or two extra hits you can take. As a scrapper, 3, maybe 4 extra hits (unless you're regen, due to how regen works the accolades do actually provide them a useful bonus).  As a tanker, you can already take so many hits that the extra you're taking with accolade health isn't really noticable.

You're talking about uber enhancements, I assume you mean the Hamidon enhancements.  They provide the same bonus as other enhancements, they just do it to several things.  So if it was a damage/accuracy enhancement, it would be the same as if you had one accuracy SO and one damage SO.  These enhancements are not as common as you think.  Most people do not have them.  I do not have any, I have played against people who do have them- the difference was not apparent to me.

Don't fall into the "If it goes to 10.2, 10 is fodder" mindset.  In CoH PvP, there's a lot to be said for smart playing.  If a Defender corners you with Hurricane, you're not worried about your enhances or accolades- you're worried about how you can get out of there and actually start hitting stuff and moving around again (for this reason, I suggest everyone buys the flight temporary power available in the arena, so you can fly up and out of the hurricane... or else you're mostly just screwed.)

Maybe. I still hold out hope PvE vs PvP is not unsolvable.

Sounds like a free slot to me.  How can that not be powerful?

We'll see.

I sure haven't found an MMOG that doesn't have, at least, a fair bit of grind.  I suppose WoW may have the least, but I did finally find the grind there, too.  I guess different people find different sorts of grind acceptable.  The CoH sort doesn't bother me as much as the WoW sort... even though I find there to be much more of it in CoH. 

You overestimate the value of a single slot.  Try out a power 5 slotted sometime, then try it out 6 slotted, see how night-and-day the difference really is.

ACTUAL NEWS.. KINDA:

Purchasing the CoV box DOES include a free month.  So if you are paying monthly for CoH already and pick up CoV, you don't have to pay that next monthly fee.  So actual cost to upgrade to CoV- roughly $35, equivalent to most expansions.  I'd say that's a pretty damn good deal.  New customers are buying a new game with content that's totally new to them, old customers are picking up an expansion at expansion prices with more new stuff than most expansions.

I already said that in this thread.  That news isn't new news, it's just my sloppy seconds.   :-P

Ah hell.

I was distracted by your avatar's ass.  Also, her left elbow looks like it's a boob when you just glance.

 :cry:

I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.

I like it.  In fact, I'll change mine too.

It's not two games, it's two sides of the same game engine. It's new powers/archetypes, and new zones, but it is not a new game. EQ2 as compared to EQ1 was a new game (though not worth buying because it sucked monkey ass). CoV is not an entirely new graphics engine, it's not an entirely new code base, it's not an entirely new game. It's Madden 2006 when I had Madden 2003.

If at any time the player base of one side can interact with the other side, even if it's only to PVP with each other, it's not a new game, it's an expansion onto the old game.

It's two games in the sense that you can pick up CoV and play it without ever having bought CoH, though.  While I haven't played all the MMOs that've been released, none of the ones I've played have had expansions you could just buy (when they're first released) and play without also having the original game.  CoH and CoV are two very similar games, but they're still two games.

 New Movie  (http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/cityofvillains/index.html)

*cough*  Sure it is.   :roll:

Ok, I get what you're saying.

It's like an expansion - that you have to pay for - similar to DAOC:SI or TOA - except that it also is a standalone, no need to purchase CoH to play.  In my book, that makes it another game.  Not a separate game, not a new game, but another game.

I think it's very cool, and am looking forward to the launch.

For a MMOG, I sure do like the fact that I can log in for an hour here and there and play, instead of sitting inside some zone advertising "LFT" for a half hour before finding a group.

The devs have said so over and over again publicly, and it's true.... CoV archetypes are rather different from the CoH ones.  Brutes do not play like Tankers, nor do Dominators play like Controllers.  Yes, they share quite a few powersets with the CoH archetypes... but with them as primary rather than secondary, or vice versa, or with a few powers removed and replaced with something else; or the powers are rearranged into a different order to be more useful to a class that plays differently than the CoH class with that powerset.

Although I frequently agree with you, Haemish, I find your definition of 'new game' to be ridiculous.  CoV is at least as different from CoH in gameplay, as, say, WoW is from EQ.  Perhaps moreso, since between WoW and EQ you can basically 1-to-1 map the classes from WoW back to EQ.  The engine is about as advanced, for polycount, etc, tho it admittedly has a better framerate.  You might as well say that Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and Alone in the Dark were not different, because while the characters and areas were different, they used the same engine.(Scumm)  Or that Checkers and Go are the same, because they both use round pieces and a field of squares as the 'engine'.  Or that Monopoly is the same game as Sorry, or CandyLand, or the Game of Life, because they all have little pieces that move around a cardboard,  square-based path depending on a random number.  Or that Hoyle's Book of games is stupid, because none of the game are different, I mean, they all just use a deck of cards, right?

Yes, I blew your statement all out of proportion.  It was fun.  And I agree that the game has some issues, especially in the sense that it just takes too freeken long to level, from about 12-35... and from 35 on it takes WAY WAY WAY WAY too long.  My highest is 44, and I've getting to the point where I just don't wanna play him anymore.  He's more or less done, development-wise, and I don't feel it's worth the time to get 2 more powers, and a few more slots.  I'd like to play a peacebringer, but I don't know that my 44 can hold my attention long enough to get to 50, and the hope of playing something else isn't enough.  I don't respond well to dangled carrots, just ask my spouse.

But CoV not being a new game?  Heh.  I'll be impressed if WoW has as much new area/enemy content as CoV in its first expansion.  Nevermind that they added 5 new classes, new mission types, quite a few new powersets, and a bunch of modified powersets...

I know you aren't in the beta yet, since you've said as much.  But it's not the same game.  It's similar, but not the same.

Alkiera

A review of what took place on Alcatraz Island.  People said stuff.

 It's on IGN.  Sorry.  (http://cohvault.ign.com/View.php?view=CoVOverview.Detail&id=39&category_select_id=10)

The ATs do feel different to me, too, even the ones that appear to be the same.  I'm enjoying them, for the most part.  Yes, I know I'm playing a "version" of CoH but it's not the same thing in a different colour.  The flavour is different, too.  I don't know how long it'll keep me occupied, but for now, it's fun. 

 :nda: for good measure.

Cool.

CoV is a new game in the sense that Werewolf: The Apocalypse is different from Vampire: The Masquerade is different from Changeling: The Dreaming.  Sure, same world.  Sure, very similar rules.  Sure, same title scheme.  And yet, three completely different games.  One is bloody war and violence, one is personal horror and angst, and one is childlike wonder and general homoeroticism.  (Actually I guess the homoeroticism goes for Vampire, too.)

That premier event sounds cheesy as hell, but if I was there in person I'm sure I would've eaten it up.

Since I'm not nearly as jaded as Haemish ("Free! Meh! Not shiney enough!") I think the no extra charge is a brilliant move by Cryptic to get established players to buy CoV. How many new players come in ... well, that'll be interesting to see.

Makes me wonder how Cryptic can afford it in the long-terrm though.

:nda: I will, however, say that accolades don't make as much difference as you might think, nor do Hami-Os. Accolades count as a new power at the level you got them at, which means when you exemplar down they go away. Enhancements also get depowered when you exemplar.

--GF

Sure, the NCSoft thing about no extra charge for CoV and CoH is a good thing, but only because I find the idea that I should pay extra for what I consider the same game to be fucking gouging.

As for the comparisons of why it's not a new game, you can't say it's like the difference between WoW and EQ. I cannot take my undead rogue in WoW and run him against players from EQ. I can't comingle. In CoV and CoH, I can. The new archtypes are just new classes, and yes they will play differently. I know that from EQ, playing an Iksar was a different experience than playing a Human after Kunark came out. Playing a beastmaster is a whole different thing than playing a Warrior. And Luclin was an entirely new planet, with a new graphics engine.

But that still doesn't make Shadows of Luclin a different game from EQ1. Sure they are giving us a lot with the CoV expansion, but that's why it's $50 instead of the typical expansion price of $30. It's still not a new game. It's an expansion.

Like people have stated, it does feel different as far as the ATs go.  It is absolutely an expansion in my mind, regardless of whether or not you can purchase and play it without CoH.  That's just a bit of glitter to distract you.  Not only that... but it's an expansion that, outside of the ATs and some costume bits, will be available to those only owning CoH eventually.  In that respect, it's just a matter of waiting a while and getting most of the expansion for free or not minding the $50 price tag (well, $35 if you count a free month, still pricey for an expansion) to get it all now, plus the new ATs.  It has been stated on the CoH boards and in some interviews that there are seven zones in CoV, three of which are PvP zones.  I'm sure eventually there will be more zones added, though I haven't seen that stated anywhere yet.  If you don't wish to take part in PvP, is that really enough of an area to warrant buying it as a stand alone game?

Anyway, lets just hope I haven't made up all that shit I just said.

Counting the free months, which we should because expansions generally don't give you a free month, $35 is a pretty damn cheap price for an expansion.  Signe mentioned it's still fairly expensive, but for every expansion I purchased for DAoC I paid $40 or more.

I still consider it an expansion, but I can absolutely see their reasoning in calling it a "new game".  For one, if they keep calling it an expansion then most people will assume you need CoH to play without ever really looking for info on it- lots of people said they'd wait until they could play villains, but probably would not purchase CoV if they assumed they needed CoH to play it.  Secondly, see my above comparison between Werewolf, Vampire, Changeling, etc.  Different games, same basic world, same basic rules.  (It's still an expansion though, because Werewolf Gifts are 100% different from Vampire Disciplines- they don't work the same and they generally don't accomplish the same things.)

Given that all other COH expansions to this point have been free, I'll let them call CoV a separate game. They sure as hell ain't Sony when it comes to ripping money from their customers' wallets..

lol, can you take the CoH fanboi hat off for a bit. The issues weren't expassions.  All the large MMOGs(including Sony) do fix periodic content updates a long with their bug fixes.  Although they have done well with zones striga, its hardly an expansion.  In fact its part of the the reason the monthly fee exist.  I think players don't get enough content given the amount of money they shell out.

COH raised the bar when it comes to content.  Any other argument or comparison is futile.   :roll:

 :nda: has pissed me off enough to cancel everything... AGAIN.  Well, I will if this fucking  :nda: actually makes it through.  I'm tired of respeccing my char and having to figure out how to play it so often. 

Cryptic can kiss my ass.   

SOMEONE GET HER SOME MARIJUANA STAT!

You can always join us on WoW.  Actually a relatively decent cross section of F13. 

I beta tested WoW and then I played for a couple of months or so.  I didn't like it.

It's not about the game, its about the community.  You do want to be cool don't you?

It's much cooler not to play any games and just smirk at people who do... because it's really, REALLY cool not to do anything at all.  I like to scoff at people who do stuff. 8-)

I'm willing to try  :nda: before I condemn it, but I think it's a bad idea.  (The NDA on this particular issue will mostly likely be dropped fairly soon, so don't worry- they're not sneaking something catastrophic in through the CoV box.)

Regarding content updates:
To my knowledge, no other game has provided an entirely new class free with an update.  (I consider Kheldians one archetype, while Warshades and Peacebringers are more like different powersets in that AT)

 :nda: isn't coming from a bad place, but the details of the implementation look  :evil:

that they have put so much effort into it, and it doesn't have any give with the take, is depressing

Well, they're really going to have to drop the NDA by the 14th, aren't they?  That's the Fileplanet weekend.  Seems useless to have a bajillion Fileplanet subscribers and expect them not to blab about what they see, innit?

As for trying  :nda: before making a decision... I'm sorry, but I don't have to be a rocket scientist to see exactly where this lands me.  Unless they decide to nerf their nerfs, it's a bad thing for most of my characters in CoH... and I don't think they'll back off this one, to be honest.  After all, besides wee things like the sonic fixes, when have they ever decided to circumvent the test server before? 

It's been posted on the CoH board now. 

uh oh.

Here it is:

See, the reason I'm willing to try it first, is because this means the following for my characters, some good mostly bad:
Permanent Hasten is gone (bad)
Uber Stamina is gone (bad)
Attacks will deal less damage (bad)
Attacks will recycle slower because Hasten is gone, even with recharge enhancements (bad-ish)
Suddenly, it's not redundant to have more than 3 or 4 attacks (good)
Since I will be buying more attacks, I will have a greater choice of which attack to use for which situation, according to their secondary effects (good)
However, a lot of these supplementary attacks weren't taken not just because it would be redundant, but because they just aren't that good either in damage, effect, or animation (bad)

THIS WILL REQUIRE A MASSIVE REBALANCING OF THE GAME.

There are a number of things they did wrong here.
First, they've been nerfing powers since the dawn of time with things like permanent hasten in mind- example, Accelerated Metabolism's recharge time, nerfed a few weeks after release because combined with permanent Hasten you could always have it up with little/no slotting.
Second, they're slowly peeling off the band-aid.  This should have been in Issue 5.  The freakout would've been about the same magnitude it was for i5 already.  Now players are getting the sense that they're being tag-team nerfed.  What's after this, a Global Damage Reduction?

I don't know how Blasters are going to survive this, since they rely on fast damage to kill things before dying.
I don't know how human-specialist Warshades are going to survive this, since Hasten is the only thing making them work.
I don't know how Super Reflexes Scrappers and Ice Tankers are going to survive this, since their defenses are already hurting and are now worse.
I don't know how Controllers are going to deal with this, since their most powerful effects already have an extremely long recharge even with Hasten.

I think this will make the game less fun.  It will slow down combat, it will cause more frequent losses further slowing down the already slow grind, and it will overall promote a different cookie-cutter build that is considered "optimized" instead of providing any real diversity.  If the devs think that people aren't going to just start slotting attacks with 1 accuracy, 3 damage, 1 recharge and 1 endurance reduction, or whatever else people consider optimized for attacks, they're fooling themselves.

But I'm willing to try it first.  This is all conjecture.  It's conjecture I absolutely expect will be accurate, but still conjecture.  I hope they are expecting to be flexible about this.  If it turns out that players really do not like it, even if Positron and Statesman remain convinced "No really, it IS a good idea!!" they need to be willing to go back on it.

Ug, nevermind.  I don't think they're listening to feedback about it.  Didn't notice the way it was phrased on that initial message


Shitty idea, guys.  Very shitty.  I tried to be positive about it, trying to figure out ways it might make things more fun, and I just can't see anything.  Guess it doesn't matter if you let people test it or not, since it seems like this is already a done deal.  You've decided, and that's it.

So I'll be testing it- to see whether or not I still want to play.

This is what makes me think they are not going to be flexible:


Maybe I'm wrong... I hope so.

I also can't see how Statesman had the audacity to spout this bit of rubbish not so long ago:

I forgive you.

PS  If I hadn't of wandered off to feed Righ, I would have been able to post that quote before you gave up the fight.  Dammit.  That Righ and his eating!

I guess you could spin the green part to mean, "Well, we finished all of the large changes to the power sets, individually.  This is more of a game-wide large change than a large change to an individual power set."

Guess I need to spend more time in the beta test to see what this really does.

I feel (sickeningly) sure that they are going to say, "We didn't change the powersets, we changed the way enhancements work.  See?  We didn't lie."

At which point the old-timer playerbase will completely implode.  Maybe they think that the turnover with the move to PvP will more then completely replace the old playerbase... who knows?  Not me.

It's been so long since they talked about adding anything that I gave a damn about that I don't know why I still play (course, that's not very often at this point).

Bloody Hell. I just used up one of my respecs last night too. Oh well at least I'll get to enjoy my new 6-slotted Hover for a week and a half or so before I go on vacation.

Ooohh!!!  I do!  I do!

They won't attract jack with PvP, because:

A) PvP as it currently stands is quite unpopular.  The arenas are ghost towns in large measure because PvP fights just aren't that fun in this game.

and

B) Anyone interested in a PvP game is already playing WoW.


It galls me, because the game was once fun.  Sure it was shallow, but it was fun, dammit.  They now seem to be intent on sodomizing their loyal fans with nerfs to the only thing that was appealing about the game; non-stop villain stomping fun.  Now they're also releasing an expansion where you're a villain in name only with completely rehashed powers from the first game.  

Here's a hint for you guys; I don't want to play through the same fucking game I've already played, only this time with "Dark" in front of my character's name.  I, and judging from the CoH boards, wanted NEW POWERS.  From what Statesman's said, apparently putting in new powers (or even getting off your lazy asses and changing the effects for pre-existing powers) is hard.  To that I say "tough shit".  I don't care how the sausage is made, bitch, I just know that I want it a certain way and if you can't deliver it then I'll find another company who can.

These people are completely out of touch with what their playerbase has been clamoring about for over a year now.  They deserve to fall down with this game.

The enhancement change, as I told Signe before, is as devastating to the game as ToA or Trammel. It's a truly terrible idea.

Someone on the CoH forums wrote:

I was amused enough to copy/paste.

Alkiera

Im not a number cruncher, but how exactly does this REALLY effect things?  Can someone give me some concrete examples?

For example, my energy blaster has most of his main attacks slotted 5 SO Damage, 1 SO Accuracy. 
Exactly how much of a damage nerf is that going to result in? 

What if i then Switch to 4 SO Damage, 1 SO Accuracy, 1 SO -End Cost?

I am also a little unclear on the special stuff.  For example, If i have 4 SO Damage, 1 Hamidon Damage/-endcost/accuracy and 1SO Accuracy, does the Hammidon one damage component recieve deminishing returns on top of the 4 SO damage, or does it only recive deminishing returns if I grab multiple Hamidon enhancements?

Personally, I think this isnt as bad as most people think, and is mostly an attempt to again improve the advantage of having a Deffender/Controller or other buffer class in your party.   It looks like what they are trying to do is lower the players ability to max their +damage/accuracy etc etc cap without the assistance of a buffing class.

Another good response from the CoH thread:

Alkiera

Well, remember permanent Hasten and all the things it made work before?  Forget that.

Regarding actual numbers, we CAN'T give you examples because they haven't given us a chance to test this, nor any concrete information.  All we know is that you'll start seeing a reduction in effectiveness when you get to a 70% bonus.  The farther over 70% you go, the bigger the diminishment.  So yes, that means if you have a Hamidon Damage/Accuracy, and two damage SOs in a power, you will see a reduction in damage.  The more damage enhancements you have, the more you'll notice the reduction.

I'm still willing to give this a try, but this is absolutely a potential game breaker for me.  It sucks, because I was really enjoying myself again.  i5 worked wonders for me, I was having a blast, I felt like hero/enemy balance was right where it needed to be, and I was looking forward to the release of CoV.  I was in the proverbial sweet spot.  Then they had to go and fuck it up.

Proving once again that there's no such thing as an above average dev team. Sigh.

It's like they hired Mackey from Mythic and decided to have him take over or something.

Someone else summed up my feelings completely:


Someone else suggested that the next Issue should be "Issue 6- Harrison Bergeron".

EDIT

 :nda: I have :nda: reason to believe :nda: we are not :nda: overreacting. :nda:

I can't imagine that they haven't thought this through, but it seems like that is the case.  Or, probably more accurately, they are thinking about this from a game-balance perspective only - this change will reduce the effectiveness of hasten and stamina, and encourage people to slot differently, and that is all they see.

They don't seem to have thought about it from a player perspective at all, which seems demented.  If they have plans to add enhancements which offer other options (e.g. an enhancement that adds slow-type secondary effects to that power), then this would be reasonable.  Unfortunately there is no carrot with this change, and not even a hint of a carrot to be shipped later.

Seems like a poorly thought out communication of change.  Also seems like this dev team no longer respects it's clientbase, and that is a very bad place to be.

It seems like, if this statement was true, people wouldn't be going apeshit over the nerf to enhancements.

They claim this has been in the works since March, so I suppose they've thought it through.  They've reached the wrong conclusion but hey, they've given it 6 months of thought!  What pisses me off about this is this is what I5 should have been.  Hell, some of us even suggested this as an alternative to those I5 nerfs.  But here we are, getting nerf on top of nerf.  Cryptic's fatal flaw seems to be that instead of choosing between a number of nerfs, they just go and apply them all.  :heartbreak:

The value of a single slot (and the enchancement that goes in there) goes up by a lot if it takes you over some important threshold value, the obvious example being perma-Hasten. In the case of slotting for damage, a single slot may mean the difference between one or two shotting a mob. It's really bad if your attacks are slotted to do, say, 80% damage in a single shot on an even level con minion, for example. That's potentially a huge waste of endurance depending on the mission difficulty. Or maybe a single slot takes you from being net positive endurance recovery to net loss endurance recovery with all your normal toggles running.

Due to the NDA, I am unable to explain why you are incorrect.

Oh, fuck the NDA already.  This game is due out in three weeks and they're still trying to keep everything under wraps?  Here's a quick rundown for anyone who's been living in a cave:

A)  Total lack of villainy.  There is no random crime, no heist planning, no whooping of civilians, etc.  Oh sure, there's the bank robbery, but that's really small potatoes that you'll only play once compared to the rest of the game, which is in every way identical to how City of Heroes plays.  Most of the time you're doing the same thing you did in CoH; fighting villains.  Sure there are some new villain groups, all of which are one degree of lame or another.  Need I go into how utterly jackass the snakemen look?

B)  With the exception of the Mastermind class all the other archetypes heavily recycle, often word for word, the powers from City of Heroes.  All of the effects are the same.  The powers are identical, and the only real difference the archetypes bring in is what the secondary/primary powersets are.  Brutes get rage, but other than that their power choices are identical to tankers.  Stalkers get hide and assassinate, but their power choices are almost identical to scrappers.  I am not exaggerating when I say that you can literally taste the lack of imagination.

C)  Costume options won't exactly set the world on fire.  Essentially it boils down to "what type of skull motif do I want to go with"?  Again, you can taste the lack of imagination.

If you want to save yourself $50 just reroll an alt in City of Heroes, because the experience will essentially be the same as playing CoV.

ETA:  Oh, and to address the nerf issue, yep, you're a hell of a lot weaker.

I won't argue with points A or B, though I don't think it's as bad as you do.  To me it's different enough to make it worth playing, but it didn't go as far as I thought it should.  Point C though, when was the last time you looked at the costume options?  They added in a lot more since the start of beta.

I'd say around 2 weeks ago.  I just don't feel one ounce of urge to go back and give the game another try.  It really is that underwhelming.

When I last played there were only really three new costume choices:  Skull motif, barbed wire/chains, and shitty looking beast thing.  All other costumes were from CoH.

Here are some numbers somebody posted in the CoH forums. I have no idea if they are accurate or not:

Schedule A (33.3% Buff enhancements)

    ......... I5 ............ ED*
    1 ... +33.3% ... +33.3%
    2 ... +33.3% ... +33.3%
    3 ... +33.3% ... +28.8%
    4 ... +33.3% .... +5.0%
    5 ... +33.3% .... +5.0%
    6 ... +33.3% .... +5.0%

Defense Buff/Resist Damage

    ......... I5 ............. ED*
    1 ... +20.0% .... +20.0%
    2 ... +20.0% .... +20.0%
    3 ... +20.0% .... +17.0%
    4 ... +20.0% ..... +3.0%
    5 ... +20.0% ..... +3.0%
    6 ... +20.0% ..... +3.0%

If those numbers are close to accurate I wouldn't call that "diminishing returns" -- that's more like a fricking cliff. Diminishing returns would be more like 33 16 8 4.

Edit: fixed typo

That'd be the NDA protected info I wasn't going to post to display why tazelbain is incorrect.  So I guess it's out there already, and I don't feel bad expanding on it.

It goes deeper than the difference of one enhancement.  If you're doing 265 damage with a given attack and someone else does 298 damage with that same attack (this is roughly the difference that one SO would make on an attack with a base damage of 100.. which I don't believe any power has), no big deal.  You can work around that.

But we're talking about the death of permanent Hasten, which makes many alternate builds work that otherwise would be entirely unworkable (for example, my human-specialist Warshade... he just plain DOES NOT WORK without Hasten) and a huge global nerf- you will be doing roughly 63% as much damage as before with 5 damage and 1 accuracy in an attack, and you will have 63% the defense you had before, no permanent Hasten so your most damaging attacks will be recharging slower, so even LESS damage, and Stamina won't be as effective as before so you'll be going through more endurance.

This means you will run out of endurance faster in every fight, especially if you rely on Stamina.  Because you are doing less damage, you have to attack more to win a fight.
This means more damage taken.  Because fights are taking longer, and your defenses have been greatly reduced, you now have a much greater chance of losing all your health before the enemy.
This means more deaths.  There's no way around that.  So more debt.  So a longer grind.  I had thought that i5 did a lot to lessen the grind- apparently that was just a bit of lube for what was to come.

And, all in all, this actively punishes diversity.  Sure, it encourages that you slot more than one type of enhancement in your power- but make damage enhancements entirely worthless, I'm still not slotting Knockback in Crane Kick.  I'm just going to try to spend those slots on something else.  Powers are made less customizable by this.  You now have less ability to maximize a given aspect of a power (recharge, damage, accuracy, whatever).  Because of that, powers that could be made useful with effective slotting and useful power synergy (read: HASTEN!!) are now stuck in their ineffective forms.  So you have even more of a "This power is good, this power is crap, this power is good, crap, crap, good, crap, crap, good." situation than before.

Balance between heroes and enemies is right where it should be right now in Issue 5.  Heroes do not need to be nerfed any further.  Individual powers need attention, !!!ALMOST NONE OF THEM NEED TO BE DECREASED IN POWER!!! Attacks like Martial Arts>Crippling Axe Kick, or Spines>Barb Swipe, or the Claws set as a whole, or Super Reflexes, or Trick Arrow, or Archery, or Ice Armor need to be brought up to par with the rest of the game.

But this doesn't even bring the other powers down to their level.  This leaves the imbalance between individual powers, and just drops everything down into the basement.  This change accomplishes nothing but increasing the length of the already overly long grind.  Enhancement Diversification is a joke and needs to be repealed entirely- not put in with a less strict set of numbers, REPEALED ENTIRELY.  Delete the spreadsheet it's in and issue an apology that it was ever suggested.  This is one of those things that should've never gotten past the "Hey, I have a crazy idea..." stage in the discussion room.

That's very outdated.  For example, there are something like 40 face choices now.  As I'm still trying to honor the NDA as best as I can, I won't go into further detail.  But there are a LOT more costume choices.

No worries about Trippy's post.  It's been posted on the CoH boards so I think he's safe as far as prison is concerned.

(he's be a hit in prison)

What the hell is Jack smoking over there?!?!  The game was fun when we can blast the snot out of a bunch of enemies and feel heroic.  I don't want it to be EQ with capes, but he seems to have bitten into the EQ/DAoC let's slow everything down and make the players suffer mode.

I know he'll reply back that he doesn't think we had a balanced risk vs reward, but nerfing everyone sucks!  I guess I liked AC's version of allways introducing mobs to balance out the over-powered than the bullshit that EQ, DAoC, and now CoH wants to do...

It is a shame though, my son and I love comics and used to love playing CoH together as a team.  He won't understand it when the nerf hits, but he will just not play it anymore.

Awww... poor kid!  Maybe, with lots and lots of luck, the two superhero mmos that have been announced, will put a spark of joy into your boy's life again.  Well, if they actually get into development.  And published.  And if they don't suck.

Of course, by that time, your boy will be all grown up and will just want to play with girls.



This post is, yet again, brought to you by, "Conjuntion Junction, what's your function?"

The thing is, I've seen this work, or something like it.

Back around the time GemStone III rolled into GemStone IV.

Far beyond the point where you could learn more spells, you could still pump points into "spell training" to increase the base power of your spells. The game was designed to make two shots per level reasonable and three shots per level require you to sacrifice just about all other character development.

Problems set in when the devs had to make new monsters 'round about level 60 or so, when there was a 60-point difference in spell power between the 2-mages and 3-mages. Do you make them tough but possible for the 2-mages to hit, with their wands and scrolls and other miscellaneous tricks to tide them over in the interim? Then the 3-mages can walk all over them effortlessly. Do you make them tough for the 3-mages to hit, to make them think again about focusing everything into one pursuit? Then the 2-mages will find them nearly impossible, even with all their extra tricks - because there isn't a trick to bring up spell power.

So they introduced diminishing returns, or cliff returns - one training was 3 points, two were 2, three was 1, so the 2-mages and 3-mages became 5-mages and 6-mages, and the relative difference in power wasn't that much anymore. But then they redefined the monster curve, gave players a respec, and nearly turned the game on its ear.

Simutronics hasn't gone bankrupt, last I heard, though I don't know if it's only the Gemstone money that's funding Hero's Journey.

I don't know how the game is going to turn out as a result of these changes. My 1-year subscription came up for renewal days before this announcement came out, and thinking it was the end of changes I happily tossed the money in. I preordered CoV too.

But this is a sledgehammer to morale, more than just a game change. Looking over my characters' builds there really isn't much that'll be affected, except for my fire tank's loss of permahasten.

It's Monday. I don't know when the devs are going to speak up or what they're going to say. Apparently they've been internally testing the stuff since March, even though when they talked to the playerbase they talked like the enhancements worked the way they always did. (Maybe this is why some of the numbers seemed off.) If they rescale hero and monster power to actually fit this...

I don't think AC's "hit the uber-templates" is the answer. That just reinforces the gap between 3-mages and 2-mages; the people with uber-templates and the people who wanted to explore the game. I want to hope they'll have the guts to do what GS3 did to turn into GS4. Leave people at the same relative power level, but their optimal build is no longer necessarily the optimal point. Or if it still is, then the other non-optimal points are closer than they were before.

--GF

It really is amazing. Whenever I start thinking I may actually d-click that CoH icon on my desktop and sign-up again, the devs do something like this. Time to uninstall this game once and for all. CoV and i5 got me to 4 (out of 10)  on the re-sub temptation meter. Now it is back to 1.

AC works on a curve.  So a level 80 is relatively comparable to a level 140.  Well relatively so I mean; I wonder if this change they are implementing is a knee jerk reaction or to assist in future project planning.  I lean towards them preparing for future content; COH has proven time and again that they DO have a plan.  I cannot say that about many other MMORPG companies.  Lack of project management forsight is a massive issue in todays subscription based services.  I believe we have gone over the correlation of retentions effects on quality numerous times though!

Well AC is kinda diffrent in that they basically had three classes: mages, meele, archers.  The mobs might be tough to 2 types but easy for another.  Plus if a debuff or buff was working so good on all the mobs, they would bring in mobs that were resistant to that debuff or buff.

Plus AC had a good balance of Solo vs Grouped content.  You want to log on for a hour and wack some mobs and get cash, items, and drops?  No problem.  Have a few hours to kill?  No problem, they would have quests of diffrent lengths that you could complete with diffrent amount of people.  I guess the lack of elves and that it was skill based made people not like it.   :|

I guess if Jack had came out from the get go and said that we could only fight 3 even con villians at at time and that is all they want us balanced for...it would have been okay.  But this is so far into the game and wanting to change it sucks.  That and the fact that he has allways said he didn't want to make it like EQ....but his actions sure are speaking louder than his words.

Another forums quote...:

That is all.
Also, as of noon CST(the time Cryptic seems to use for everything... are they based in Texas?), there has been no dev replies to the LONG threads on both boards.  The CoH thread was over 3600 posts, in less than 24 hours.

Alkiera

Yes.

Cryptic's not (they are in the SF Bay Area) but NCSoft USA is.

From Positronm, a few moments ago:

Sounds to me like they need to 6 slot their spin control power!

Looking around a bit, I've noticed you can get the WoW box, which also gives a free 30 days, for $39.99.  $39.82 if you don't mind shopping at Wal-Mart.

Given that pretty much every issue since i3 has added primarily nerfs to the game, and secondarily some minor additions to the game...  WoW is looking more and more tempting.


Currently, 6 SOs is a 198% bonus.  So if you have an attack with 1 ACC, 5 DMG, you do (base dmg) * 2.65.  If the worst of the rumors I've heard are true, that number will be more like base*2.3.  So you lose an entire SO of damage, and gain... less than a DO in end reduction?  Even

Gee, thanks.  If I needed an end reduction that bad, I'd just drop 1 DMG for an ENDRDX, giving me 33.3% reduction, and still be doing about the same damage as with this nerf, depending on how bad the actual numbers are.


Alkiera

I don't need end reductions as much as I need faster recycling times for my Controller's powers.

This is going to make fights last longer.  Quicker fights are funner fights, more heroic fights.

So now I'll toss out a power, buff my nails, toss out a power...

At least my nails will get done.

The above was posted by Statesman in that gargantuan Enhancement Diversity thread.  Not long after it was posted, it was deleted for some reason.  I'm thinking he's going to start a new thread, but haven't seen it yet.

It's still there.  I think the boards are acting goofy because of all the action on this thread.

EDIT: Oh wait.  The entire 365+ page thread was deleted.  Then reposted.  Now it's got 6 pages or so.

Yeah, I just saw that.  Old thread broke under its own weight.  Statesman's post is back up in the new thread.

It's worse than that.

You are losing .61 of that equation, meaning you're losing 2 SOs of damage.  That's with 5 slots.

Essentially, slotting any enhancement of the same type beyond 3 in a power means that many more enhancements you're losing in effectiveness.


Thanks, but it's not my opinion.  I've played my own characters, I know what makes them work.  Throwing recharge reductions into my powers isn't going to do it.  One of my characters who was viable and on the same level as other heroes using an alternate, frequently considered "gimped" build, is going to be unable to reach the level of other heroes now with his current build.  In order to make him viable, I will have to completely rebuild him and change his playstyle to a style that I specifically avoided because I do not find it fun (amazingly, this is the build that most everyone else uses already- so hooray for diversity making us all the same).  So yes, you have destroyed my character.  That is not opinion, that's a fact.

Yeah, posts, threads and whole pages are disappearing every so often. 

The devs keep trying to distract from this by offering increasing buffs. Who really believes these "benefits" were part of the original plan. They are scrambling.

Statesman also said they forgot to post that they were going to cut debt in half or something, but that post seems to have fallen into the void, so I don't if he changed his mind or what.  They'll definitely need to do that and more as characters will be dying in mass quantities.

I found it... it's now tacked on to the end of Statesman main post and the end of CuppaJo's repost:

Well, the debt cap is different from debt.  I've never had any character reach the debt cap.  That's the point where it doesn't matter if you die anymore, because you just cannot receive more debt.

So the maximum amount of debt you can have on a character has been halved.  But that means nothing for people who die, work it off, die, work it off, die, work it off.  Just people who die, die, die, die, die, then start working it off.

Yep. Thats me, right there. Me.

I never see the debt cap either.  I don't think all that many people do... of course, they will now.

My Ice Blaster back in the early days of the game saw the debt cap a couple of times.  That was back when my slotting was diversified.  Guess it'll be back to those good old days!

Statesman says:


    Quote:
    CatMan
    Will powers that have a long recharge be compensated?



In these cases, I think most players will slot several Recharge Enhancements to compensate for anything lost by Hasten.


I already have 3 recharge enhancements on my most used powers, plus Hasten 5-slotted with recharge enhancements (lvl 25 SOs).  Hasten is not permanent now, but I can call up my 3 decoys twice during a big fight.  So now I'll be able to use one set of decoys and then die or run away.  In other words, fight smaller groups, plus fights will go slower.

I fail to see how this is in any way a good change.

What the hell has the dev team been smoking. I know I certainly don't view less resist on my tanker as an advantage, I'm pretty sure the people I team with won't either.

That's because you're an insensitive, unfeeling prick who only thinks about himself.

Why don't you, for one second, think about Jack Emmert's vision?  Every time you fight more than 3 henchmen at once the poor man cries himself to sleep that night.

I can't believe how bad this game has gotten so quickly. I used to like it the best out of the current crop of MMOs but after the I5 changes to my regeneration scrapper I just left and I really doubt I'd ever come back if stuff like this goes into the game.

Me too.  My main is a regen scrapper and after I5 I sat there for hours, figuring stuff out and respecced it.  I did the same with 2 other characters I played rather often.  The other alts I just ignored.  They have said now, after all the fuss, that this change will be on the CoH test server.  I can't test it in the CoV beta because I don't have any character high level enough.  But it doesn't matter.  I don't think I'll bother.  The last thing I want to do is respec another bunch of characters.  That is definitely not my idea of a good time. 

Name policy change (http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=info&Number=3845194&bodyprev=#Post3845194)

If they want to makie absolutely sure that nobody ever returns to the game wouldn't it be more efficient to just delete the characters entirely?

Cryptic is kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place on this one.  On the one hand, you want there to be every incentive for people who have quit to come back.  On the other, people who are still paying to play have been asking for something like this for a long, long time.  With an expansion/companion game coming out that would just exasperate the problem; they really had to do something.  Personally, I think they set the level cut off too high.  Based on the responses I got when I expressed that on the official forum though, I seem to be the only one who feels that way.  :mob:

I wonder what they're next "return to CoH, your characters are waiting" promotion will look like?  "Come back to CoH... Your characters are still there but you won't recognise them by name."  Other than the fact that when someone yells, "I'm quitting!", the new response should be, "Can I have your name?"... I think it's a lousy idea.  If people can't come up with a name that's not already used, fuck 'em.  Who needs 'em?  It's not as if there are bajillions of people playing this game.  If the name you pick first is taken, then it wasn't very original anyway. 

Ho hum.

This policy is idiotic. If the game had 500,000 customers it might matter. Why are names an issue for CoH yet they weren't for EQ1 when that game had 450,000 subs? What this policy means is that Cryptic is in pure customer retention mode. Of course that theory ignores the new Enhancement Diversification idea.

I think the name change makes perfect sense.  One of the draws of COH is rerolling multiple characters with different abilities/looks.  I imagine if you compared the amount of alts a person has on COH compared to other games then the results would show COH having more characters rolled per person.  I do believe I read this somewhere as a matter of fact; I do not have the wherewithal to dig up the facts at this time.

Because people like me took all the "Good" names like 'Radiance' (Rad/ Energy Def) and 'Issues' (Empathy/ Psych Def) and 'The Martian Flea' (invuln/ SS tank) and then promptly quit the game 6 months later.  They want those names, NOW, dammit!

Yeah, this and ED pretty much guarantees I'll never return.  Just like when they announced the deletion of unused SWG characters.  I just couldn't be bothered to come back even to save the name.  A resounding Meh, good luck with that from the sidelines.

I stand 100% behind the name policy.

Is it so hard to log in once every 90 days?

It's not just the uncreative names that are taken.  For instance, I couldn't even get the name "Somnus" on my server.  I altered it to "Somnuos" and got that.  I frequently spend a couple hours trying to get a decent name.  It is a problem, and would be a worse problem for new players just picking up CoV and finding that just about every goddamn name (and every variation of that name) is taken.  I'm really happy with the few names I have that sound like they might actually be superhero names (Gin, Deepsea, Eldritch, Dullahan... I was amazed neither Deepsea nor Dullahan were taken, Eldritch I nabbed like three weeks after release and have been using it on various characters since... I used to have Margrave too, but couldn't come up with a good character for it so that might be gone by now).

Also

Shouldn't the onus to make people want to log in be on the developers and not the players?

You just suck at making names!  :-P  Anyway, I think it's for inactive, not unused, accounts.  So if you pay, regardless of whether or not you use that character, the name will still be there.  That better be the way it is.  If someone pays, it's there business how often they play an alt.  Some people, like me, only play a few hours a week.  It would be difficult to play all my alts in 90 days, maybe... or even remember which I haven't used for 90 days.  Just because I haven't played an alt for a long time, doesn't mean I never will.

I also agree with it, but I think the level cutoff should be much lower, say level 5 (someone playing to level 35 wasn't just reserving a name, they actually put a fair amount of time into that char).

In fantasy or sci-fi genres the drive is to create a name that is unique.  The comic-book oriented genre is all about choosing an archtypical name.  Using a borked spelling that is close to the real name often is extremely lame (Insindiary instead of Incindiary... course I hope I'm spelling that right)

There are only so many Archtypcial names, and for some weasel to log in to a dozen servers and use the name "Typhon", "Surtur" and "Acetyline" is just wrong, and I should be ashamed of myself.

I do think the level they chose is a bit high.  I would've made it 15 or 20.

And yeah, Signe, I believe you're right.  Your account actually needs to be closed and inactive for 90 days, not just the character.

Most of my names are German, anyway, and no one wants them.  No one EVER uses Signe, either... even though I've asked people on game forums to use it.  It's almost always available everywhere... which makes me feel rejected and depressed. 

I have a sekret club and none of you are invited to join, by the way.   :rock_hard:

Ain't that some shit.  I can NEVER pick Cheddar.  I mean seriously, who the fuck in their right mind would want the name Cheddar?  Sheesh.

Llava is almost never taken.  Probably because it means nothing.

I have no trouble getting the name Cheddar.

Schild was taken in a game. Oddly enough, by me. I never remembered making the account.

lol!  that's good stuff.

Am I in the minority of folks that get bugged if I have to mangle a name to get it?  I'll do it, I'll get over it, but it's itchy for awhile.

I refuse to mangle a name unless it's really goddamn good and won't fit in the space alotted. My unused character in CoH right now is Mr. Ripley. I wanted the Talented Mr. Ripley. Wouldn't fit. That's about as extreme as I get. I despise seeing mangled names in game. Should be against policy. I find mangled names incredibly hard to send 'tells' to, just bleh.

I absolutely refuse to mangle a name.  I will first try to find some variation (for example, if Dullahan was taken I could've gone with Durahan.. they mean the same thing) and if that doesn't work, I'll try for a different name.  It really sucks if you can't get a name that fits the concept.

I've had more than a few good concepts fizzle out because they got saddled with some crappy name and I just didn't want to bother playing them.  Artisan was an okay name on its own, but really didn't fit the concept I was going for (I wanted Carpenter, tribute to the White Wolf character.. what going to be an ex-hitman nicknamed The Carpenter... doesn't really work as well with The Artisan).  Ashen Eidolon is a name I really hate, actually, but I won't delete and remake the character because he's level 40.  He's my oldest character on the server, but I have two that are higher level than him.  I only play him when I see a group that needs more for the Eden Trial.

But right, there was a point there- I hate mangling names.  I won't do it.  I would have absolutely no desire to play Eldrytch.  Because that's fucking retarded- that's not how you spell eldritch.

Of course, you wouldn't want to use the name Eldritch, right? I mean really, would I use the name Yggdrasil? No, I don't think so. Just sayin'.

Edit: Ok, now I kinda wanna start using Yggdrasil. Damnit. Must make a druid in  :nda:.

Hell, the reason I play my characters across multiple servers is because of names. A couple of them, I think too, were just outrighted jacked. Some of the names I had would be suspiciously missing on servers just moments after messing around in Outbreak, then deleting to reroll into a new costume.

Anyways...Signe, it may not seem that important in the context of other online games, but with comic books, it's a unique problem. I usually don't get hung up about this sort of thing (Though I did get pissed recently to find that a name I've been using for awhile in fantasy games is forbidden in WoW. I found out that a CRS coincidentily goes by the same strangely spelled name, so it's forbidden across all servers. Kind of makes me go through an identity crisis or something  :wink:).

You guys are pulling me around to your side on the CoH naming policy. I don't know why I really care anyway. The game is gone from my harddrive finally.

I don't know about comics.  I don't read them.  I don't like them.  You're all a bunch of dumbass babies.  You should name yourself Wah-Wah Man.   :-P

So there.

Bet ya it's taken.  :-(

[edit] Btw, grats to Llava. He may be the first person at f13 who has started a thread that went over 5 pages that hasn't devolved into complete chaos. Good thread, man.

It's probably because this subject  doesn't inspire passion.  Now if he had started a thread about shoes, we'd be at each other's throats. 

I loves gurlie shoes!

(http://www.girlyshoes.com/photoshoes/images/boots_n_sox.jpg)

They go all the way to the knee in CoH.  That's just wrong.

I've got more shoes than any other guy I know.

I really, really wish there was a pattern like that for the socks in the game.  :?

They have absolutely neglected shoes and socks in CoH/Cov.  Boots galore... gloves up the watuzzi... where's the sock love?  How about us shoe fetish people?

Huh?

Why wouldn't I want to use it?


How is that not a great name?



Also I think talking about socks just ruined this thread's position of "not devolving into chaos".

Just so you guys know, I have a slew of good names that should become available on Freedom shortly, if they're going ahead with this.  Give these a try:

Captain Pansy
Floodlight
Mech Mantis
Joy Buzzer
Think Tank
Ma Deuce
Harlotquinn

Harlotquinn?   :|

Heh..Floodlight is pretty cool.

For some reason, it sounds kinda Transformer-ish to me..

She's the clown illusionist controller I set up, and seeing how I lacked suitable jester clothing (pointed shoes, etc), I went for full out hooker mode.  Knee high boots, miniskirt, etc.  Hence, Harlotquinn.

Jester clothing inc w/ CoV

Too little, too too too too late.

Just sayin'

Also, just posted:


And:


You might think having one's words scrutinized so closely for so long might make one more cautious about how he phrases things.  You would, apparently, be wrong.  But whatever, I believe him.  I still think it was a stupid mistake and I'm surprised he made it, but I believe him.

Yeah, my main is SR....The change is nice.

But it's also stupid. Just goes to show how broken of a concept Defense is in general. Wtf? Now I get dmg resistance? Why?

My 50 is SR as well.  I like it.  It does fit with the concept, as it's easy to imagine "rolling with a punch" as resistance instead of defense.  Defense could work on its own to protect a character, except there are too many ways around it- particularly, important in-game mechanics like the streak breaker code and the to-hit floor of 5%.

Welp this thread has killed my will to even think about picking up CoV... 

Mostly the part where Gulp said its just the same stupid grind and the part where everyone says that the pvp is stupid in this game.

Well, not to be a fanboy or anything, but I rather enjoy the PvP in CoH.  It lends itself more to 2v2 or 3v3 though.  1v1 is too unbalanced, and 8v8 just gets to be too chaotic.

I didn't much care for the CoH arena PvP.  I have no idea what the PvP is like in CoV because I've never done any.  I suppose I'll let Llava kill me if he's nice.

If anyone's still on Virtue I promise to put up a heroic fight to the death... It can't be worse then being ganked with a viking sword of vanq.

I haven't played much, but I think the ideas lend to much better PvP than what WoW has at least.

That being said: Yeah, same stupid grind.

So I can't quit now.

My SG decided on a server for our CoV characters, and I went over there to see what kind of names I could get.

I managed to get "Horde".  It's a beautiful name.  It's very comic book-y.  I'm going to use it for a Mastermind.

Imagine.  My battlecry can be "For me!"  And I can make my minions yell "Yeah, for him!"

Course, I'm sure all my friends will point out that it's similar in sound to "whore", but I know they'll all be stewing in their own jealousy as they get stuck with crap names like "Mister Mynd".

I'd like to point out that I predicted that enhancements != powers spin.

Cryptic needs to give me a job.

Regarding problems with the 90 days of account inactivity:

CoV NDA Lifted.


So.  Anyone wanna know anything?

First things first, Claws have a new look:

(http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/6439/newclaws9vc.jpg)

They should just make the beta boards visible to anyone who wants to look.  That way we could all stfu.

What a dumb broad.  Like anyone plays Betas these days to test the game.  It is a blatant method of pimping a game in these enlightened days ("Beta").

Funniest thing I've seen in beta...

(http://dslinux.dyndns.org/~raptor/pics/badday.jpg)

This is a normal NPC of the type that normally walks up and down the streets...  except he's hopping slowly down the street, as his feet are cemented into a bucket.  I'm guessing the idea is that The Family plans him to take a long leap off a short pier.

Alkiera

So I'll write up some more detailed info about how the new ATs play, for those who don't already know.

Stalkers:

A Stalker is an assassin.  Primary sets include:
Energy Melee
Ninja Sword (Basically Katana)
Claws
Spines
Martial Arts

Secondary Sets include:
Super Reflexes
Regeneration
Energy Aura (New set)
Ninjutsu (New set)

All secondary sets have "Hide" as the first power.  Hide is a toggle, and is invisibility/defense buff.  When you are hidden, your next attack is guaranteed to be a critical hit (assuming you don't miss).  When you attack or take damage, Hide is suppressed for 10 seconds.

In each of the primary sets there is a new power: Assassin's Strike.  It is a moderate damage, interruptable attack.  However, if you are hidden when you attempt an Assassin's Strike, it will hit for somewhere in the area of 7 times as much damage.  This is enough to one-shot most lieutenants at lower levels.  This becomes available at level 6.  With Build Up, you can almost one-shot a boss.

There is also a new power called Placate in all primaries.  Think of this as a Jedi Mind Trick.  In fact, that's exactly what it looked like when I used it on my Ninja Blade Stalker.  It's single target, and it makes the target stop attacking you, and you are now Hidden again.  Now keep in mind- other enemies can still attack you if they want.  If they hit, it will break your Hide.  That means you want to use this carefully for maximum effect.

Stalkers lend themselves best to a hit-and-run style of play, in my experience.  Let the Masterminds send in the pets to take the alpha strike (don't worry, there will be plenty of Masterminds) but before they do that make sure you're already in position standing right next to the biggest, meanest badguy in the group.  Just after they launch the opening volley, assassinate that guy (chances are it'll just require the assassin strike, then one or two more attacks if it's a boss) and get the hell out of Dodge.

The primary sets had area effect attacks removed and replaced with the Assassin Strike.  Stalkers also deal less damage hit-for-hit than Scrappers.  They are meant entirely as alpha-strike, single target attackers.  If you're fighting big groups of minions, you'll feel you're going to waste.  On the other hand, if your group is going up against an Elite Boss you will own him before he gets a chance to do anything nasty.

The defense buff from Hide is minimal, except for AE effects.  When the Hide isn't suppressed, it gives more than 30% protection from AE attacks.  So you have a pretty good shot at getting close to something using PBAE auras or whatever, especially if you slot this.  All of the secondary sets except for Regeneration focus on Defense, which is better for a Stalker than Resistance because a Stalker wants to avoid being hit at all so as to complete an Assassin's Strike and not have Hide broken.

Ninjutsu is one of those new sets that's like a combination of existing sets.  It's part super reflexes (defense toggles), part regeneration (self heal), and part utility (it gets Caltrops, for instance... works nice for the hit-and-run strategy when solo).

Energy Aura is interesting.  It's sort of like Ice Armor, minus the slowing effects.  It has some endurance help (I believe it gets both Conserve Energy and a PBAE endurance drain), but I didn't play this set so I don't know it all that well.

Um...okay...how is that not totally broken in PvP? What's the recharge time on the Assassin's Strike power?

I wanted to get some facts about Brutes down before I forget them, but I didn't really play this AT so anyone who did feel free to jump in here and cover this more in-depth:

Primaries:
Super Strength
Fire Melee
Dark Melee
Energy Melee
Stone Melee
People have been begging for Axe, Mace, or Broadsword all through beta. I don't know why they're not in.

Secondaries:
Invulnerability
Fiery Aura
Dark Armor
Stone Armor

This AT used to have Ice Melee and Ice Armor, but it was removed.  The reason behind that is because Ice effects slow down enemy attack rates, and Brutes directly benefit from attacking and being attacked as often as possible.  Thus, Ice=gimpy Brutes.  Energy Aura was the replacement secondary, initially that was only open to Stalkers.

So we've all heard about Fury, but how does it work and what does it do?

Every time you attack, you gain some Fury.  Every time you are attacked, whether or not you actually get hit, you gain Fury.  Fury decays over time.  So it's in your interest to move as quickly as you can from one fight to the next.  Fury raises your damage.  Significantly.  With a full bar of Fury, you will do 300% of your usual damage.  That means you will easily outdamage Scrappers as long as you can keep the Fury going.  Naturally at almost no Fury you deal less damage than a Scrapper.  But there's an important point in there- Brutes are not Tankers in spirit.  They are much, much closer to Scrappers.  Brutes are significantly more fragile than a Tanker.  The damage more than makes up for that.  If you wanted to be the Hulk, this is your archetype.

"But if Brutes aren't the tanks, who's taking the damage?"

Masterminds.  Mastermind pets aren't the best at holding aggro, but they're good at soaking up the damage.  Since Masterminds usually have abilities to heal their own pets, it works out nicely.  Masterminds will end up with 6 pets eventually.  You start out with 1 minion, or 1 Tier 1.  At level 6 you'll get your second Tier 2, so 2 Tier 1s.  However, once you get this one they'll both drop a level.  So 2 -1 Tier 1s.  Then as you get your third, it'll be 3 -2 Tier 1s.  And you'll get some Lieutenants, the first will be your level, the second will cause them both to drop one below your level.  Lastly, you'll get a boss, and he will be equal to your level.  So at the end you'll have 3 -2 Tier 1s, 2 -1 Tier 2s, and 1 +0 Tier 3.  You can rename pets as you like, and the names will stick (name one Zombie Bob and another Jim, desummon them, summon them again, they'll be Bob and Jim.  If Jim dies and Bob doesn't, summon again and you'll just resummon Jim.)  You can set macros through them to make them emote or say things.  There are all kinds of opportunities for comedy. 

Primaries include:
Ninjas (new set, combined with Archery)
Robots (new set, combined with Assault Rifle... uh, kinda.)
Zombies (new set, combined with Dark Blast)
Mercenaries (new set, combined with Assault Rifle more obviously)

Secondaries include:
Force Fields
Dark Miasma
Poison (new set)
Trick Arrow
Traps (new set)
Maybe some others I can't remember

Zombies are summoned and appear from a dark pool on the ground.  Mercenaries are called in via radio (from what I've heard, the first tier just runs in, the second tier rappels in from above, the third actually parachutes in).  Ninjas are... uh, called I guess- I've only seen the first tier of them, and they jump down from above (plus when dismissed they say "Without a trace..." throw a smoke bomb on the ground and vanish which is totally sweet.)  Robots are dropped from some orbital station that apparently all Robot Masterminds own.  A large metal crate hits the ground and unfolds, revealing the robot.

Herding isn't likely to be much of a possibility in CoV.  Fights will be chaotic.  Lots of damage is going to be hurled around.  It will play similar to City of Heroes, in that the combat systems and a lot of powers are the same, but I believe the ATs are different enough that the game will provide a significantly different game experience.  So if you just plain didn't like CoH, this game, like any expansion, isn't likely to fix it for you.  If you did like CoH but just couldn't find the right playstyle with the ATs given, CoV may fix that.  If you've played CoH for a long time and want to try out something different, you have about a 75/25 chance of liking CoV.  If you wanted new powers, you'll probably be disappointed.  If you wanted a rebalanced game, this delivers.

And hell, since I'm already writing:

Corruptors are like reverse Defenders, or tweaked Blasters... depending on how you play.  Their primary sets are Blast sets.  Their secondary sets are Defense/Buff sets.  Depending on how you build, you can be a damage powerhouse or play team support.  Corruptors' inherent ability is called Scourge, and its mechanics were recently changed.  Initially, if an enemy was below 20% health and you dealt damage to it, that damage would be doubled.  Useless on Minions, okay on Lieutenants, handy on Bosses, awesome on Archvillains/Monsters.  However, because no one likes feeling not-that-useful unless there's an AV around (which isn't that often) it was changed to a gradient.  If an enemy hits 50% health, you now have a chance to deal double damage with Scourge.  The lower the enemy's health, the higher that chance gets.  A Stalker and Corruptor duo can coordinate to be quite powerful- the Stalker taking out a big chunk of the enemy's initial health, the Corruptor finishing him off quickly with Scourge.

Dominators are Controller/Blaster/Scrappers.  Yeah.  Their primaries are Control sets, including the new Plant Domination set.  If you wanted to make Poison Ivy, you're in luck.  Your secondaries are combination Blast/Melee sets called "Assault" sets.  Most of these are built from pieces of other sets (Icy Assault has bits of Ice Blast and Ice Melee, Fiery Assault same deal, etc).  Some of these sets include pretty new power- Psionic Assault, for one, offers Psionic Dart.  If you've ever played a Defender with /psychic blast, you know how laborously slow Mental Blast is.  Psionic Dart is much more like Neutrino Bolt- quick, a little damage, very fast recharge.  Thorny Assault is partially built from the Spines Scrapper set, with a few added ranged powers.  Thorny Assault offers a lot of new art- they didn't just reuse Spines and retexture them, they altered the model itself... suffice it to say, when you're using your Thorny Assault powers, you will look VERY thorny.  You thorny bastard you.  Do I make you thorny baby?  Etc etc, more puns here.  And yes, they do get pets.  Plant Dominators in particular seem to get a ton of pets.  No, they don't get the Containment damage bonus... they would be laughably overpowered if they did.

Weaknesses I've noted:

Stalkers do pretty piddly damage when not taking advantage of their Assassin/Hide/Placate abilities.  You cannot, cannot play this AT as a psuedo-scrapper, or you will suck.  Stalkers are also quite fragile, moreso than Scrappers.

Brutes are very solid, but they're penalized for spending too much time to stop and think.  It's very accurate when you think about it- Brutes don't think about whether or not they can win a fight, they go on a fucking rampage and to hell with the consequences.  So sometimes a Brute will be urging the rest of the team to keep up.  Even a Brute's health and endurance have to give out sometime, though, and the key is knowing when to stop and rest and when you can push yourself further.

Masterminds.... um.  I'm not sure what their weakness is.  They do pretty decent damage, not amazing but decent.  Their pets can take a punch to the jaw and not fold like a card table.  Plus they can provide support for their pets and the team.  They're good solo, they're important in a team.  Where they'll really falter, I'm guessing, is against archvillains and other powerful enemies with AE.  Those will probably take out the Tier 1 and maybe Tier 2 pets really quick with AE.  The boss may last longer.

Dominators' main weakness is their reality fragility and lack of defense/self healing.  You can put out some pretty respectable damage and hold things pretty well, but when you start taking shots there's not much you can do but hope a Corruptor or Mastermind stops doing what they're doing and heals you.  This seems like an AT that will really bloom at later levels with more slots.  However, until the end of the game you will probably never feel like you have enough slots.

Corruptors suffer the weakness of all hybrids- they're not as good at blasting as blasters, and they're not as good at defending as  defenders.  It's up to the player to find a happy medium.  The bad news is that a single Corruptor probably won't keep a team alive like a Defender can.  The good news is that you aren't likely to be turned down for a team because "We already have 2 Corruptors".  Even if the team is solid for defense, extra damage always helps.  Corruptors are in the unique position to offer both.  Plus, they have Masterminds to help pick up some of the slack in the defending arena.

So there you go.  My opinion of the CoV ATs and why they make the game fun.  In a lot of ways it is like a new game.  But don't fool yourself- if you stopped liking CoH within the first week or so of playing, you'll feel the same about CoV.

This is all assuming that Enhancement Diversification doesn't destroy the game entirely.

You know what? I should've written that better so it could go up as a review on the front page.  Oh well.

You are unlikely to one-shot a player, particularly with the Enhancement Diversification changes going in.  If you've played much in PvP, you know that players are actually pretty decent at soaking up damage- even Blasters aren't as fragile as you might think.  That being said, if you're a Blaster, Defender or Controller and a Stalker does manage to get a full strength Assassin Strike on you, you are in serious trouble.  Either be an awesome player, know what weaknesses to exploit, or have a good team to fall back on.  As a tip, Ninjutsu Stalkers have no inherent protection to knockback.

But like any assassin/rogue class that can pop out of stealth and deal a shitload of damage, the Stalker will be the focus of many whines.

Bold mine.  That'd be Manticore.  I'm interested to see how it comes out.  I have the distinct impression that the comic will be much better written with him doing it, since he built the game's story from the inside and out.  Better than a comic writer trying to translate the story into a comic book and failing miserably, anyways.

Different mediums and all that (one SHITTY and one not), but I like those newer comics much better than any storytelling in the game (not the ideas and characters mind you, because that'd be contradictory).

It'd be a very telling thing about mmo storytelling in general if this new comic turns out better than the rest.

Okay, rant post.

I just got Issue 5.  This shit is exactly why I don't like these comics for the most part- they have no idea how to fucking write these characters.  Take this little monologue from Citadel, an android:


Okay, is it just me or does that sound like a human describing an android?  Were I writing it, it'd be more like this:

I believe I understand.  I do not share the human traits of dependency on food, or a weakness to biological illnesses.

I would've skipped the money bit because it's stupid.  He's an android without a secret identity- what, does the Freedom Phalanx pay him?  How would he get money?  Why would he take it when he knows he doesn't need it?

This is two pages into the comic and I felt I had to post this.

Curiousity?

Hmm, if you're going to rant about that, then I'd like to hear what you have to say about Data from ST:TNG. Hell, almost any android in sci-fi stories for that matter.

Don't watch Star Trek.

Vision from the Avengers, in the few comics I read, seemed to act appropriately like an android.

Hell, the Martian Manhunter acts more android-like than Citadel in this comic.

I don't watch Star Trek either, but C'MON now...You know who Data is.

You could even call this an archetype. So many androids are portrayed this way (i.e. Pinnochio complex et al).

Oh I know who he is, but I've heard him speak maybe... twice.  In those situations, he seemed appropriately android-like.

I think my problem is that they don't write Citadel in a "from the outside looking in" sort of way, but rather an "inside, describing what it would be like to be on the outside looking in."  They make it sound as though he completely understands humans and believes their biological and psychological traits to be "the standard."  Thus he describes himself as different, saying stuff like "I don't eat... I can't become ill..." instead of doing what I would think an android would do- refer to himself as the standard and state that humans are the ones who are different.

Basically, from the way it speaks it sounds like he's acting like an android, he doesn't really believe it.  It's nit-picky, but when it comes to this sort of thing that's just how I am.  Don't get me started on how people write elves.  Seriously.  Even I'm not sure how long I'd rant.

got to agree with Llava on this one:

1) Pinochhio has been done, and done again, and again, and again.  Zero points for creativity.
2) Why would his creators program a pinocchio complex?  Seems to me like you'd get a broken andriod if you did that.  To create pathos with the audience?  People develop attachments for cars, lawnmowers and chainsaws, often because they do what they are supposed to do very well, they don't need for the appliance to be broken to form an attachment.

Well, I don't disagree that Pinnochio is played out. I was just pointing that Pinnochio is quite common when used to portray droids (of which Llava was unaware it seems).

As for your second question: Why would they create Pinnochio complex?

I don't think they ever do. It's just the thing that happens when an otherwise intelligent being realizes his differences.

Oh, as to the guy with his feet in the bucket, I was running around last night and saw him on a dock near the water, surrounded by members of the Family.  I attacked them and he went hopping away...  I'm guessing that's what happened before I came across him for that screenshot, someone else had helped him out.

Also last night, we had a team consisting of 5 20ish MasterMinds.  Dear god.  Each MM had at least 4 pets.(Some, like /Traps, can summon a force field like the Skyraiders have.)  There were 12 robots, 4 soldiers and 4 ninjas.  With 20+ pets, plus the ranged attacks from masterminds, none of the inidividual attacks did a whole LOT of damage, but there were just so many of them.

Defensively, we were disgusting.  2of the guys were /Force Fields, + the bubbles from the Protector Bots(Robotics Lt), + the big shield from the /Traps FF Generator... My secondary is Dark Miasma, so we had an AE heal and nice debuffs, and we had 2 /traps guys for other interesting things.

We were a spread from 19-23, and we rolled over low 20's stuff like an army.  Because we WERE an army.

Alkiera

p.s. The weakness of masterminds is their personal squishiness.  There are lots of cases, ambushes and the like, where the enemies are agro'd on you personally, and the pets can't generate enough agro to pull them off.  In PvP this happens frequently, as players know that when you drop, the pets go bye bye.  And MMs don't have astoundingly high hp, either... being one-shot by a stalker is certainly a possibility.

There's way too much fucking math in this thread. That's part of why mmogs suck, games should not need math (KotOR excluded).

I liked CoH and I'm kinda interested in CoV, but I don't have time for the grind in the game. Hell, I just don't have time for mmogs, I guess. When you have a social life, I guess anything you can't drop at will becomes undoable. Goddamned social life.

Best. Puzzles. Ever.

For those that are curious(Sky, just skip this post :-P ), since I was bumped up to 23 the other night, I got to see the new SO numbers under the Enhancement Diversification System, aka Affirmative Action for SOs (AAS) program...

Using +2 SOs
1st SO gave 36.6%
2nd SO game 36.3%
3rd SO gave 23.5%
4th SO gave 5.5%*

* or would have, if I hadn't said 'forget that!' and put it somewhere else.
To respond to someone who was talking about 'the value of a slot' before... the value of a slot goes down even when the enhancements stay the same value.
Before:
Now, with AAS:
Now, those numbers don't look so bad, I mean we only lose 45 damage, a mere 20%.  If we assume that the 5th and 6th SOs don't get any worse than 5.5% (a possibly incorrect assumption.) we get the following:
Here we go from about 320 dmg to 213...  about 2/3 the damage.  And this situation is not that rare in the 41+ level range when scrappers and tankers get access to Focused Accuracy, and no longer have to slot ACC.  Heck, blasters with Devices/Targetting Drone can so the same thing.  Consider that Heals, Regens, Recharges, etc all use the same numbers. All those 'perma-whatever' powers?  Not any more.

The point, supposedly, is to 'encourage' the use of more different enhancements, rather than slotting 5 or 6 or the same type of enhancer.  Given that focusing like that was the mathematical optima, especially with powers like Focused Acc, Target Drone, Conserve Power, etc to pick up the slack, there was no reason not to. 

Now...  I dunno.  There's a lot of powers that only accept one kind of enhancement.  For those powers, this is basically a 30% nerf.  For those that DO accept more than one type of enhancement, frequently all but 2 of the types are nigh unto useless, or have effects that are perceived as negative, like enhanced knockback.  With 2 KB SOs, you can make mobs fly twice as far as they would otherwise...  That'll make the melees in your group happy.

Alkiera

Numbers.

How....Superhero-ish.

Social lives lead to social diseases.  We're better off without them.

Shitty lockon MMO combat for teh looze. Any game that can turn a big knockback into a negative has issues (no pun intended).

Hey, this thread saved me $50! Thanks?

The real point is they wanted to nerf SOs, something I don't disagree with in concept but I think was a bad idea to do in addition to all those I5 nerfs.  They should have just included ED into I5 and left out all the power nerfs.

This comment (http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=general&Number=3856258&bodyprev=#Post3856258) Statesman makes is very interesting.  Especially his reason 3.2.  Crafting anyone?  Or perhaps a reward for mulit-team Supergroup content, which I saw mentioned somewhere would be added in the future.

Another screenshot, just to show one of the new facial options:

(http://www.cityofvillains.com/game/images/corruptor2_thumb.jpg)

There are something like 6 different scarred face options for men and women.

What does this mean?

3.3) We wanted to curtail the constant powers analysis more; we wanted to set a balance standard and move towards it.

That means, roughly, "now that we've created a soft enhancement cap, we can develop more types of enhancements and new powers or powersets without staring at a giant web of interconnections looking for an exploit."

Players are still welcome to spend 6 hours putting together an Excel spreadsheet and computing optimum time-to-level.

--GF

Does anyone in beta have an SG?  Could I pretty please join?  I want to see a base.  The names I'm using at the moment are Frau Zerstorun and Shattenfreude.  My global SHOULD be @Signe but sometimes it reverts to @BlackEyed Susan which is the first char I made.  I think Global is still knackered.  Ta.

I'm not in a SG, so I'm powerless to help.  I blame it on Mr. ED.

It means that they want to leverage their core competencies, but only if there is synergy in doing so.

Duh.   :roll:

Give me a holler if you see me. I'll invite you.

Global is @ClydeJr or I'm also on as Blue Skull, Eclipse of the Sun, Dynella, or Major Green.

Brutes are what I always thought tankers were supposed to be.  They are more like scrappers that get free damage SO's as long as they are juiced.  The crazy part is when you have AOE offensive powers like those from Darkness and Fire.

Masterminds seem way over powered, but that is probably only in the PvE space.

The plant/plant Dominator is just crazy fun.

You are the shnozzle or whatever that word is.  Because you are such a sweetie, I have done this for you:


Well, maybe it wasn't me... but it's news.

Also, the City of Heroes novel came out.  I picked it up and have just started it.  At the beginning of Chapter 2, I'm still interested.

Still liking the Web Of Arachnos book, but I'm still not too far in. I'm a slow reader, and I haven't been focusing on it really, just a few minutes a day.

Good news for Martial Arts Scrappers:
On the CoV servers, Crippling Axe Kick is doing way more damage.  When asked about it, the Stalker Rep said that he believes the City of Heroes version will receive the same damage increase.  Instead of doing damage identical to Thunder Kick, it will do damage identical to Bone Smasher from the Energy Melee set.  Roughly two times as much damage.  It is now officially a worthwhile power.

DEAR SWEET JESUS THOSE THIEVING BASTARDS


Okay, to be honest, I thought it was already 14.99.

Someday, someone will have the guts to round it off to $15.00!

Maybe they'll do $14.99⁹ like gas stations next.

I'm trying to figure out something...but instead of 6 slotting my attacks with my blaster...I'm trying to figure out how much I'm going to loose.  Example of the AR, I usually take burst and slug, and just 6 slot them with damage.  Now I'm stopping at 3 damage and either go with recharge or defense debuffs (hopefully those aren't screwed up).  My Broadsword/regen has this set up with Slash, 3 accuracy and 3 defense debuffs and then I follow up with the heavy hitters of hack and disembowel.

What are they going to do with those that don't have a lot of choices like health and stamina?  Just stick 3 and be done?

Yeah.  Statesman's response about that was "Characters with powers like that in their build will have an advantage in that they can spend those slots elsewhere."

Sure.  Huge advantage.  It's one of the dev-iest things he's said, I'm still irritated about it.

LOL.  People whos mothers have died have the advantage of not having to buy Mother's Day gifts. WOOT.

Wow, that was really really funny, NSFW funny even.

PvP event tonight.  I won't be able to make it, as I will be busy lavishing attention on a certain human female, but it sounds like fun.  Those of you who have access ought to give this a shot.

I wish I'd read this yesterday.  How'd it go?

I only managed to get on for a few minutes.  The girlfriend was distracted by the NES.  It was laggy.  Very laggy.  But that's to be expected when you have a billion players all in one zone.  But aside from the lag, it was actually pretty fun.  Seems like PvP will have a pretty fun pace- slow enough that you can do stuff before your head hits the ground, but fast enough to keep it interesting.  Mastermind pets need a "close to melee" command.

Use the GoTo command, you can put them wherever you want, including right next to enemies.

Alkiera

Ah, good call.  Forgot about that one.

Was irritating to have 5 ninjas following me and they're all throwing shurikens for piddly damage.

I thought it was pretty shit-tastic. You were supposed to log in to either the hero or villain side, talk to Statesman/Ghost Widow to get free exp/cash, train up, buy enhancements at the NPC stores nearby, and then click on States/GW to get transferred to Siren's Call. I went to the hero side and they had Statesman and the NPC stores all within 10 feet of Ms Liberty. That means everybody was crowded into a tiny space. The client pretty much said "Fuck that, I'm not drawing everyone" and you probably saw a quarter of the people there. I had a hard time finding Statesman and an even harder time finding the NPC store since I was lagging and rubberbanding everywhere. It didn't help that I picked the origin at the top of the list (science) where the enhancement names aren't descriptive. Hydrogen Bombardment, what the hell does that do? Trying to bring up the info screen was an exercise in futility. I finally said screw it after buying about half of my enhancements and went to Siren's Call.

There was about 12 instances of Siren's Call running when I got there. If you were anywhere near a larger fight, it got pretty laggy. Powers were taking 3-4 seconds to activate. If you had any sort of toggle power, you'd click it, think it wouldn't activate, click it again, the power would then activate from the first click and then turn itself off from the second click. It didn't help that I picked a low damage AT with a powerset combo I was unfamiliar with (storm/dark defender). I should have switched to a blaster or scrapper but I didn't want to go through the whole mess again. I didn't die that often but I really don't know how effective I was either. Heros/Villains are a lot tougher to kill than the standard NPC enemies. It was more like fighting a ton of boss type enemies.

All in all, I wasn't really that impressed. Hopefully the live servers won't be as bad as this since this was more like a stress test. It seemed like if you had more than 30 people in a small area all firing off their powers at the same time, the game slowed to a slideshow. I think CoH is more suited to smaller battles and not huge ones like the ones we had here.

Looking at the arenas, I think it's a safe bet to say that the battles will be smaller on Live.

They're asking on the CoV board for suggestions for new powersets for all the archtypes. I like this request post from the Mastermind dev, Positron:


Pirates sound great but can you imagine getting killed in PvP by a bunch of Pennywise clones?

Oh come on who would not want their own insane clown posse! HEHEH the pirate thing is a given though I mean how can you have a ninja mastermind without a pirate mastermind YAAAAARRRRGGGH!


kaid

Or just a Pirate scrapper powerset. It'd be cool to have a melee class with "questionable" moves and tactics like "Groin Shot" and


"Guns".

Last I heard, geko has a white board with ideas for new powersets.  He's also said that the next sets that make it into CoH will be melee sets.  They've also mentioned that they are 100% aware that Street Fighting is a highly requested Scrapper set.

Yes, but I want a melee class with Muskets!


Actually though, Street Fighting would kick ass. That's more my kind of thing anyways. The only "bare fisted" melee class is "Martial Arts", and that isn't even Bare Fisted, nor is it Martial Arts. Having a whole powerset consisting of Kicks is silly. Not even kick-heavy Martial Arts disciplines like TKD are really all that kick-heavy.

I've always wondered why they never had a straight up punching class as of yet (Scrapper based at least). This should have been the first thing ever put in.

I tend to agree.  Dark Melee is usable as a set of that sort (take Smite, Shadow Punch, Shadow Maul, Boxing, Air Superiority) but it should have been there before.

Dual Pistols are also a much desired, believe it or not, Scrapper set.  I don't know if that will happen.  I would think it much more likely as a Dominator secondary, with their mix of melee and range.  But I guess if they keep the range fairly minor and make it a "Gun Kata" sort of thing, it could fit for a Scrapper as well.  I can see all the Pistol/SR "Clerics" now.

I want mimes.  and when you're just sitting around, they all do the stupid mime-shit, invisible wall, walking against the wind, making a sammich, all that shit.  They are the only pet that cannot do verbal /petsay.  Course, the urge to let enemies beat up on your mimes will be overpowering.

Why?  there is nothing more evil that mimes.

I'd have loved to see a Scrapper powerset focused on the Bo Staff.

Yes, very cool.

Kilik ftw (err...Actually, he sucks...But still).

For some reason though, the "staff" has been deemed a useless melee weapon in online rpg's. Moreso than even fists! I wouldn't expect Cryptic to change tradition.

A lot of people have asked for Staff, actually.  I'm one of 'em.

I wouldn't be too surprised to see this happen.  Look at Valkyrie when you're in Steel Canyon sometime.  Course, that may be a spear, it's hard to tell.

Some good news:
Statesman has said he hates the slow animations on Psionic Blast, and they WILL be changed.  No ETA, but hooray.

Apparently the villian version replaced some of the god awful slow animations on the early psi powers with things MUCH faster. The normal defender psi powers first 3 powers are just so fucking slow they were not worth using. Once you start getting past that hump though they are fine. TK blast and whatever the other cone shapped one was were a great one two combo. Bit long recharge but they fired off instantly and did great damage to most things.

I wouldn't be to shocked if they just give the new mind dart animation that villians have and give it to defenders and just rename it.


kaid

I want toddlers for minions.

Ma Barker with younger kids.

Kinda.  Mental Blast and Subdue are still in the villain set, they're just moved to later on.

gah why lord those two powers are the only real stinkers in the psi set. They are just so god awful slow its insane. Other than those two powers the rest of the set was pretty dang good. Early sniper shot that did some damn good damage and the rest of the powers were pretty quick firing if a bit long recharge powers.

I shudder to think what mind blast and subdue replaced if they were moved later in the set because everything after them actually was useful.

Psi powers were the only power set I wished you could totally skip the first and second power neither was worth wasting endurance on.


kaid

Well, as I said, Statesman has said that the animations for those two "WILL change".

Subdue is actually quite a damaging power now, they gave it a face lift recently.

Ah that wouldn't be to bad if it at least did damage comparable to how long it took to fire off. Back when I played my psi/storm defender it took ages to cast and in the end did little damage. Once you got TK blast and that other good attack whose name escapes me you could do your one two punch all day long for 3 times the damage of subdue or mind blast.

kaid

Interesting (http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=basecon&Number=3945696&bodyprev=#Post3945696).  They're going to put in personal 'housing' after all.

Sweet.  Considering that most of my characters are reclusive by nature, this is nice for me.  Unless each individual place requires a shitload of rent and thus activity on my part.

All rent does for bases is turn on the 'goodies'.  If all you want is a place with furnishings to hang out in, you never have to pay a dime of rent.  At least, that's how I understand it but I didn't get into testing bases much.

I think you're right, actually.  I didn't test bases much either, but I believe I remember that.

Statesman Q and A (http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=Dev&Number=4223723&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1)

Wooooooo!

My favorite villain group.  Always wondered what the hell happened to the Reichsman.  Awesome, can't wait for this.

The 5th Column is back? Neatoooooo.

They're one of my favourite villian groups too, but I can't even remember the last time I logged in for more than a few minutes.  Strangely, instead of making me more motivated to play, CoV made me less.  I think it's because, although I had fun playing now and then, it showed me that they're not really adding much that's new in terms of content or even things such as tilesets.  The ED pretty much pissed me off, too.  They are more interested in forcing people to play in a way that they have determined is correct instead (after a full year of play, no less) and slowing them down.  I haven't cancelled my sub (I have cool names!) but I'm thinking about it seriously.  It's hard for me to cancel this game... I love character customisation too much.  It's like a dress up Barbie game all on it's own!

For clarification, this is a "will definitely be", not an "is".  This is from a recent Stratics chat.

Pohsyb once more demonstrates that he lurks here (http://www.flickr.com/photos/72249991@N00/76327897/) (not to say that we have a monopoly on this latest net trend, but still)

So my wife, who careens between chagrined acceptance and active interest in my gaming, actually fed my addiction more by getting me CoV for Christmas. Not sure what she was thinking there, but here I am.

I read somewhere in here F13 was on Victory. Oddly enough, my launch characters were too. If anyone sees Darniaq the L15 hero or Darknieq, whatever villain he becomes, say hi!

I've had my CoV box here since November and I still haven't gotten around to activating it. I spose I should.

/me sneers.

I finally activated mine, played 2 weeks, and cancelled.  Do I win?

Grats 1000 posts Nebu woot!

As a note,  AV/Hero soloing is not completely out of the game, despite all the efforts of the dev team. In the past few days, my level 33 Mastermind has soloed:
Luminary (Energy/Energy Blaster Hero NPC)
Mynx (Claws/Super Reflexes Scrapper Hero NPC)

Back Alley Brawler is currently in my sights, but soloing him seems completely out of the question.  Too much AE.

I should also note that these were not trivial victories. But they were definitely victories.

Llava,

How did you manage it?  Was it a lot of kiting?  Do you think that any other class could potentially solo those guys?  I've been playing a cold/dark and an energy/cold corrupter and can't imagine outliving my inspirations, let alone winning. 

As for the 1000 post thing... I completely missed that.  I need to start paying more attention.

I don't think any other archetype could manage it.  Not that I can figure out, anyways.

At 32 I got my final pet training ability, and I use Ninjas. So that means my Oni uses both Char and Ring of Fire frequently.  It's usually only a little bit into the fight before he has them immobilized.  When he stacks two Chars with my hold ability (my secondary is Poison, and I use Paralytic Poison), we can Hold an AV for a bit.

I duck behind some handy geometry to keep the AV from using ranged attacks on me, and I jump out every so often to use one of my three debuff abilities (one for accuracy/damage, one for defense/resists, one for recharge/movement speeds) or to heal a minion.  Generally, by the time I've lost a bunch of my minions, the recharge time on the summon has reset and I can bring out some replacements. I'm careful about which ones I train up so as to conserve endurance and most effectively utilize the time it will take for those abilities to recharge.

I don't know if any other Mastermind builds could really manage it, honestly.  Poison has some powerful single target debuffs, and ninjas are quite good against powerful single targets (especially with Smoke Flash causing a minion to critical on every attack for 6-8 seconds).

So there you have it.

So in the "WTF is Cryptic thinking this time?" jar, we have a new change that was initially undocumented with the newest patch to test:

Characters who are stealthed in any way are unable to interact with clues.

That means if you have Hide, Stealth, Invisibility, or any other stealth toggles active, you can't click a glowy.
If you stand next to someone who has Steamy Mist or Shadow Fall running, you can't click a glowy.
If a teammate activates Group Invisibility while you're in range, or puts Grant Invisibility on you, you can't click a glowy.

I didn't think stealthing missions was a problem in the first place, but assuming it was this is about the least reasonable way they could have implemented this.  Other options would be suppressing the stealth power while interacting with a glowy.  Add a PBAE perception bonus pulse to glowies the same way it was done with arbiter/police drones.  Something that doesn't screw people who are under the effect of a click invisibility, and irritate people who have to wait for toggles to recharge every time they want to click a clue.

This is still on test and subject to change.  But you gotta wonder how something like this made it that far, sometimes.

After the massive nerfs in I5 (AoE holds among other things) and I6 (ED) nothing Cryptic does to slow down player progress surprises me. I've never played an MMORPG that has had as large wide-ranging nerfs as CoH has had (I put SWG's CU and NGE in a separate category, those are more wholesale game mechanic rewrites than nerfs of existing game mechanics). Even Verant/SOE in their heyday with EQ doesn't match what Cryptic has done.

I guess I still don't understand why the nerfs are such a big deal.  They slow down the progression to the non-existant end game.  What's the rush?  CoH/CoV is the perfect game to log on, kill shit for an hour, and log off.  Changing the rate of the grind really doesn't have much effect on what the game does best.

I'm perfectly happy to say goodbye to the leet min-max crowd when they can't get their ding-gratz! fix fast enough.

But for I5 and ED I can, for the most part, say that I actually did find the game significantly more fun after the nerfs.

I know, it's weird.  I hated ED at first, too, but aside from a couple characters who I just don't want to rebuild, I'm definitely more interested in slotting mechanics now.

This change, I really don't get.  Like I said, if stealthing missions is a problem, did they really have to implement a fix for it in the least user-friendly way possible?

I'm perfectly happy to stop paying cryptic $15/mo to see my character get weaker and weaker, since at the high levels, playing hour or two at a time, I could not gain levels faster than the Dev's were nerfing me(as a 45ish /inv scrapper, I might as well not have any secondary powers at all.  I forget to turn them on, and can't tell the difference in combat, aside from sleep/stun/kb resist; I'm pretty sure my resists at level 30, around late i3, were better than they were at the time I quit a couple months ago at 45/46).

And while I did enjoy logging on for an hour or so and killing stuff...  When I thought about how many of those sessions it would take before I saw any change in my character whatsoever, I just stopped logging in, found other things to do.

Alkiera

Here's my perspective: The game is about combat.  Unfortunately the differences in combat from 1-50 aren't that noticeable.

However, there is another game hidden within, it's the "how do I use these new powers/how do I slot my powers" game that you can only play as often as you level.  That game is fairly amusing and breaks up the tedium that combat can become.  When the devs slow down leveling, they reduce how much you get to play that hidden game.  CoX needs all the mini-game/diversions it can get it's hands on, especially at the higher levels when you aren't getting powers that mean anything anymore.  Unfortunately, this is the point in the game where leveling slows to a crawl.

It's not going to make it live.

As soon as they realize they've turned the Freak disguise mission into a wait-60-minutes exercise (hello, auto stealth suit) something has to give.

Would you mind it as much if interacting with a glowie suppressed stealth?

--GF

When the rate of progression gets too slow, I find the best minigame to be rerolling another class.  You get all sorts of new abilities and powers to play with in a short time.  I understand what you're saying about character development and agree that the grind from about level 30 on is one of the more painful that I've encountered since EQ.  Seems that the better stand would to be that of shortening the treadmill while simultaneously balancing classes.   It's painfully obvious after playing a few different classes/builds that some represent easy-mode.     

I have to also think that the addition of pvp to their game will undoubtedly also bring additional realizations that all classes/builds are not created equal.  Though the game is primarily one of PvE, I'm sure that you'll see some pvp balance creeping into the PvE world.

As I said above, I don't think it needs to be fixed, especially given that they've removed experience for glowies in this patch... you just get inf according to the forums.  But if they REEEEEEEEALLY need to fix it, stealth suppression seems like the obvious choice, and I can't help but wonder at the mind that decided to implement the fix like this, test or no.  It took me all of 2 seconds to think of two better ways to implement this.

Heh.

Good, that's done with.

I stealthed a crapload of mission with my stalker but for a completely different reason. When I played with a bunch of people in my SG, I would gain an insane amount of experience in a short time. We'd run full groups of 8 on at least the 3rd difficulty and we were all decent enough players that we didn't die too often. Getting a level in a few hours of play wasn't unheard of. A side effect of getting a lot of experience is you out-level your contacts. I wanted to see the mission texts and story arcs that the contacts provided. So when I soloed with my stalker, I'd stealth whatever I could to get the minimum exp needed for the mission. That way, I could see all the contact provided by the contacts. I'd even suicide after mssion just to get debt so I wouldn't level so fast.

I should have clarified that statement.  I wasn't attaching it to the current stealth situation.  I meant it more in terms of players that had slotted enhancements in ways prior to the enhancement patch that they were able to chain kill mobs other classes couldn't touch.  I'm personally a big fan of stealth and think accomplishing missions using it should be part of the game.  Why have stealth if you can't use it for avoidance anyway?

I'm astonished at your dedication.  You sir are an incredible connoisseur of mediocre-at-best fiction.

I did the same with my Controller, except for the debt part, until the grind got so bad that it wasn't necessary anymore. The whole outleveling a contact thing is so bizarre to me given that they have a nice shiny dynamic enounter system in place where mobs can scale to your level. Just as bizarre is how the storyline missions don't dynamically adjust.

That one cracks me up since it's so true. Early on for most missions it's pretty clear which ones are click the glowie only missions, which ones are kill the boss and the minions around him only missions and which ones are defeat all missions. As you get further along, though, it's better to assume all missions are defeat all (except for AVs and tram missions) even when the mission description implies otherwise.

Also, I should mention that there are origin-based temporary powers on Test now.  Newly created characters get and keep these until level 10.  To help speed up the lowbie game, make it a bit more interesting other than, as another poster said, "brawl, attack.......... brawl................ attack..... brawl.............. brawl....... attack".

So, good.  And making it Origin based is fun.

I'll be happy when the AV change goes in.  I always duo with my sweetie and it was getting hard to advance through the 40+ game.  With Issues 5 and 6 we lost interest as we felt it would be an exercise in futility.  (We were a MA/Reflexes Scrapper and a En/Inv Tank, and while built smart we tried to build to concept and fun, not to be the best.)

This gives me some incentive to return once my current games lose their luster.  Thank you for posting about it.

Glad it works out for you two.  That's what this thread is here for.  Though I've provided a low signal-to-noise ratio lately, I should watch that.

(Personally, while I'm in favor of the change, it does irk me just a tad that I can't try to solo a villain on Heroic anymore.  But it's not like I can do that usually anyways, and they've repeatedly stated I'm not /supposed/ to be able to do that.  Oh well, my accomplishment just becomes that much more unique.)

This is HUGE.


These are nice as well

10,000 WICKED DEMON HELL DEVIL CITY OF SUPER FUN HAPPY HERO SHOTGUN GO! (http://ftp://ftp.cityofheroes.com/movies/coh_asia.wmv)
(or the quicktime version here (http://ftp://ftp.cityofheroes.com/movies/coh_asia.mov))

Asian launch movie promo.  One of those pre-rendered, high quality ones.

It's called "City of Hero".  En...grish?

(Also, who the fuck are those guys in the movie? (http://www.cityofheroes.com/news/archives/2006/01/city_of_hero_as_1.html))

City of Hero > City of Heroes.

So over the course of the last week or so, Cryptic has:
1) Admitted a fix was poorly thought out and taken it back
2) Fixed the defense/resists disparity with new code
3) Made the game completely soloable from top to bottom
4) Fixed a number of borked powers (Blizzard and Rain of Arrows specifically)
5) Made toggle-dropping less irritating
6) Introduced lowbie temporary powers to make the game more fun at early levels

And they reconfirmed that CoH characters will be able to use CoV costume parts.

THIS is the company that made me a fanboy.

Grind still there? Ok.

Nice changes. They have long felt to me to be fairly good at reacting. It's also easier in a more focused experience though.
That's it in a nutshell for me as well. It's a great combat sim, but little of anything else. Long ago, I realized I can't keep a persistent interest in a game that has nothing more to it than fighting, no matter how good that fighting is. I generally end up accepting weaker combat systems in games with more options, more ways to define my role in the world. What then happens is I wish that world would end up getting the combat system of the games I can't maintain interest in.

Like, EQ2 with CoH combat, or SWG with PS combat. Win-win in my book, because the combat itself is obviously compelling enough to maintain a solid level of interest with one fanbase, while the experiential parts of a world are great for others. Worlds try to be many things for many players, and I long for the broader worlds to get combat right. The problem, as I see it, is one of resources. Companies are forced to focus on breadth at the expensive of depth, or depth with no breadth.

I found this interesting- one of the devs mentioning some previously unknown bonuses from specific temporary powers available in CoV.

Because I love to brag:

Last night I soloed Wretch, a VERY fast,  super strength/invuln Brute AV.  The super speed running around really makes it tricky.

Anyways, so far the score is:

Horde>Wretch>Mynx>Luminary

Luminary really was cake compared to Mynx and especially Wretch.

Fine, don't give me my well earned props.

Just for that, I'm not telling you all about:



Hey, nice, sure, we knew it was coming.


I FUCKING LOVE YOU, CRYPTIC!


People have wanted Electric Melee and Electric Armor for a long, long time.  Thug pets sound good, and really ought to have been available at release considering it's the most common demonstration of Mastermind-like powers in actual comic books.  I'll probably roll one of those.  Too bad the Carnival pets aren't ready to go yet.  Dark Armor and Dark Melee for Stalkers. <shrug> Feh.  People wanted them and were begging for them to be available, so it makes sense, but not like it takes a ton to make an existing set available to another AT.  Though I guess it'll be interesting to see what powers get rearranged, and what the Dark Melee Assassin Strike is.


Me want costume details.

Damm you Cryptic. Now I have to resubscribe :heart:

Good on them.

So, lemme get this straight...

CoV gets a new PvE zone, new PvP zone, new mission type, more powersets, these new 'Patron Powers', etc...

CoH gets the one PvP zone.  Some minor engine upgrades like reflective glass.

Gee.  As a (former) CoH player who did NOT buy CoV(aka CoH2:More of the Same), I feel quite justified in having left.

Alkiera

Something not mentioned in the I7 release info is that the Paragon Dance Party (PDP) aka Pocket D is getting a big facelift. Originally (well, currently) it is warehouse rave thing that few people bother to go into. The update will see it turned into a more club-like map where both heroes and villains can mingle and potentially do missions together (although that is just speculation at this point).

It's up on the Test server now for people who want to see it; it's actually identified on the map now (whereas before it was meant to be 'secret').

Jack Emmert (Statesman) is slated to write the next Prima guide update.

Don't think I've heard of a strategy guide being directly written by a top developer before.

(Now we can finally have a guide that tells us How CoH/V Is Supposed To Be Played! :wink: )

Oh lord if those mayhem missions are at all decent that could be a total riot hehe. I can just see going to the team on TS okay guys you go left I will go right and lets rip this town to pieces.


The rest of the stuff looks pretty good as well. I am not sold on the thugs but hey probably an easy add and a lot of people asked for a ganger set. They really needed pirates though. How can you have ninja masterminds but not have pirate master minds. Especially when they have such nice pirate apparel in the COV character creator.

Oh lord for the patron powers I would have to be a disciple of cpt mako. Flinging sharks at my opponents for the win!


kaid

This is now live.

After months of CoH, I now know how it's supposed to be played.  And that way isn't any fun.  Hence my lack of active CoX subscription.

Alkiera

And just up on the test server now are Hero/Villain teamup missions based out of Pocket D.

Well, all this excites me more than the thought of playing EQ2 for another month at least so I'll be picing up CoV soon now that it's $30 at a lot of places (even for the collector's edition).

Valentine's Day event has begun and will last until Feb 22nd.

For logging in, you get the Heart of Light badge if hero, Heart of Darkness if villain.  You also receive acess to a new "Toga" costume piece.

Yes, a Toga.  Think Cupid.

The hero/villain cooperative missions are live and in Pocket D.  Each mission /requires/ that you have at least one member of the opposing team with you- yes, forced grouping.  Not that it's gonna be hard to find a villain or hero wanting to do the missions over the next couple weeks.

There are badges for completing these missions.

Some interesting CoH subscription numbers taken from the latest NCSoft financial reports (http://ncsoft.com/eng/nccompany/ir_data_report04.asp).

From the User Statistic section for City of Heroes:

	June 04	Sept 04	Dec 04	March 05	June 05	Sept 05	Dec 05
Servers	11	11	11	15	15	15	15
Highest Concurrent Users	31,085	26,870	15,741	21,283	20,911	22,340	23,730
Daily Access	69,011	68,073	45,318	56,366	59,969	59,133	66,775
Monthly Access	169,925	163,053	124,435	140,481	162,922	150,068	194,000

Close to 200k active accounts would have been a pretty respectable number pre-WoW.  Still not bad for a nitch game, I suppose.  Just thought the numbers were interesting.

(By the way, they have Guild Wars data in that same PDF document as well if anyone is curious about those numbers)

It's not a niche game if there are 100,000 people paying for it.

Also, looks like about a 44,000 user jump since City of Villains got released. I'd say those are damn great numbers. Fuck WoW, it's not in the same category, IMO. Fantasy MMOG's are only peripheral competition anyway. There is no other game in the medium that fits the genre. I want to know what it does when DC Online or the Marvel game get released.

And, uih, one of the most awesome temp powers ever.

It's called Nectar. It splashes out an area-of-effect combination confuse and placate effect - whatever it hits will beat up on its fellows if the confuse is powerful enough, but in any case won't target you. It's powerful enough to cloud the minds of bosses and lasts at least a minute. You get 20 shots of it.

Put it to use last night in Diviner Maros's arc (whose narration is inspired by Dr. Manhattan). Went through a custom cave map which was the prison for some ancient evil, smacked down the Freakshow ("Dude?" "Yeah?" "This 'cult of the shaper' thing was fun to start with-" "True." "But lately it's gotten kinda weird. I think we should pull out after this is over." ::I ATTACK!:: "Why? Why do we constantly engage in these self-destructive behaviors?") and when the end boss summoned backup, I hit it with a splash of nectar. Yay, reinforcements!

It would have worked out better if my Lich hadn't tentacled everything but the end boss and then swept it over the edge of the ledge we were fighting on, but overall it was a successful run.

--GF

Well since Sigil is doing the Marvel game I figure Cryptic has at least 5 or 6 years before they even have to worry about that.  As far as DC goes I'd put my bet down for early 2008 (based on nothing but guesswork).  I'd say that Cryptic has a good amount of time to build up some more content before any competition shows up, and now that they have City of Villains out of the way I'm curious to see what they come up with for their next expansion.  Wasn't an underwater expansion one of their earliest ideas?  Maybe TOA kinda killed that concept off though.

Statesman has dropped only the following hint about the next expansion.  And I'm paraphrasing here.


He's mentioned well before the release of City of Villains, however, that he'd love to do a more pulp-style expansion.

Then it's definately time to get the music team back together and create an entirely new soundtrack, stat.

Just a quick point on mayhem missions, they will, in effect, be 'destroy % of targets timed' missions. I have no issue with this, but some people will.

Also on patron powers, these look suspiciously like the hero 'epic' pools. Again, that seems sensible to me, but some people will object.

Other than that, I'm a little disappointed at how little CoH (as opposed to CoV) is getting in I7. /shrug

That's exactly what I always assumed it was, and I assumed everyone else was aware of that as well.  The difference being that the powers you get have more to do with who teaches them to you than with a given "theme" (like devices, or dark mastery, whatever).

I mean, what else could it have been?

Given each Patron has a set of powers, I would say they still follow themes.  The difference is that they give you an in-game reason to be picking them up, where as the Epic Pools in CoH you had to come up with your own reasons for having them.

Well, it wouldn't be the first time the devs have given something a cool name, and when it turns out to be whatever a rational person might expect, there is a great wailing and a gnashing of teeth about how it doesn't completely revolutionise the game, doesn't change the nature of villians so that they are no longer just evil versions of heroes (despite the fact that that is exactly what villians are in actual comics), doesn't patch in the arr-pee, the fun & an end-game, and doesn't make people who dislike the basic combat system stop complaining about 'teh grind' - whatever that may be. That's all.

You're right, sorry.  I was thinking like a rational person, not a gamer.  My bad.

Some new details on Recluse's Victory:


If you wanted revenge on Positron for his TF, or on Statesman for the nerfs, here's your chance.

Sounds like the Domination levels in UT. :D

Some of the most in-depth info we've seen about I7.  Copied from a dude who listened to an interview and posted it on the CoH boards, I recommend reading it all:

Shinier. (http://www.cityofheroes.com/feature_update_issue_7e.html)

Sweet lord almighty, Thug Masterminds look awesome.

Preview of the new powersets, down to individual powers. (http://www.cityofvillains.com/feature_update_issue_7g.html)

That's 120 pets in an 8 Thug MM group if they all summon their gangs at once.

I'm seeing an Arena event where exactly that thing happens. 8 on 8 thug masterminds just having one big ol' gang rumble.

--GF

For some reason I still get CoV newsletters, anyway I thought this was interesting.

This is kinda important:


So no worries about losing any of those names you've got saved, anymore.

Frankly, I liked the policy.  The level was set too high, but otherwise I felt it was a good way to keep decent names from getting sucked up and buried in an account's grave.

I thought they were just doing the name thing for the CoV launch. I didn't know it was an extended deal. More than likely, some of my names are gone then.

[edit] Heh, so I decided to resub for this very purpose. Luckily, my characters are alive and well.

What are these new gladiator badges anyways, and why are all of these villain groups on my side now?

[edit] Another thing, Llava...

Any tips on a Katana/SR respec? I'm clueless.

Grav/Kin as well.

There isn't another game that changes powersets as much as this one. I honestly believe that Jack Emmert has OCD.

Where are you, Stray?  I have characters on Victory and Virtue.

I have some CoH characters on Victory and Freedom. Nothing from CoV.

Gladiators are a kind of Arena match. Instead of going in to pound it out yourself, you get a point-based stable of villain surrogates to fight it out for you. You can command them like Mastermind pets.

Gladiators don't actually do anything that could get you XP, though.

Well, with the defense changes in I7, SR is fine, and the passives are getting buffed too. If you're looking for three powers to drop to take Stamina, consider the weakest basic attack, the single-target taunt, and either parry or the passive melee dodge.

For grav/kin, if you have somebody made up pre-containment, know that when you hit something you've controlled, you do double damage to it. Propel just went from bottom-of-the-barrel to one-shot potential. I'd hold off on GDField until you can buy SOs, since the recharge rate is so very long. Also, you can pretty much skip a travel power with siphon speed and IR, so there's most of Stamina right there.

--GF

Thanks for the info. Should I still get active buffs now that the passives will be better? Or both (it's what I have now)?

Take both.  And don't skip the passive melee defense- that's important for PvE.  The passive ranged defense is a better choice, though you'll be fighting more  ranged attacks  in PvP.

Katana and SR are both solid sets, now, so you can't really screw up their spec.  All of Katana's attacks are good (but, as said, Gambler's Cut may be just a bit too low in damage and too quick in recharge to really utilize it properly once you have all the other attacks), and just about everything SR gives is worth taking.

Slot your active toggles and your attacks, keep in mind that Enhancement Diversification means that more than 3 of a type of SO in any one power is a waste.  Therefore, I wouldn't put more than 5 slots in my defense toggles, and would probably only put 4.  (3 defense, remainder endurance reduction).

If you'll be doing PvP, it helps a lot to 2 slot accuracy into your attacks.  Parry will help you outlast Brutes, but it won't be a lot of good against anything else CoV throws at you.

You do want Stamina, but you could get by without it if you slot endurance reducers in everything.

This is kind of cool:

Kinda cool if you smell like cat.

And ass.

 :-D

Interview with Positron about Issue 8 (http://www.gamespot.com/news/6156725.html?tag=latestnews;title;2)

Basic list of features for Issue 8. (http://www.cityofheroes.com/game_update8.html)

Makes business sense but sad nonetheless. Still, shortening the exp curve helps current customers level alts faster AND would bring back some who quit.

Less grind, please.

1. Less grind

2. Personal Housing

3. Itemization

I'd play again.  Especially with 1.  The rest are just gravy. 

I think a lot of people would play again with 1.

But yeah, I couldn't agree more with these.  Why bother getting to 50 when you know the grind is awful at 30?

And loot.  I love loot.  Even when it's just fluff.

I violently disagree with loot.  I do not want loot in this game.  Please stop trying to make this game into all the others.  One of the reasons I play CoH is because there is no loot.

That said.

Less grind would be nice.  The double experience weekend felt about right.

Personal Housing... I don't particularly care.  It'd be nice, I suppose, but I get my "nesting" urge fulfilled with my supergroup base.

I agree about the fluff.  One of the draws to CoH is the badge thing.  I  :heart: CoH badges!

Loot or Achievements. Microsoft has raised the bar. Badges are just a weak form of achievements. NCSoft needs it for all of their main games and a way to brag to other people about all their games. Oh, and they need a station pass. K?

Why? So you can also play Lineage II and Auto Assault?

I meant to say they need a station pass AFTER they add achievements so people will actually play Lineage 2 and Auto Assault.

Microsoft has raised the bar with what?

I think he means with the 360's achievement thingies.  Those of us without one apparently didn't know our bar had been raised.

I join the chorus saying no loot please. I love me some loot, but not having it in the game keeps me from having to spend hours upon hours trying to obtain that one uber item that keeps me from competing with everyone else out there. Instead I spend hours upon hours playing with my costume pieces in the tailor.

I do heartily agree with less grind though. Housing wouldn't be bad. (though you can almost have it with the supergroup base.)

also I'd add:

1) More mission variety
2) Vehicles
3) Some kind of non-combat skill for variety. Like the detective skills they talked about at one point.

WINNAR!

(I agree completely... the missions get stale pretty fast)

You know, when I said loot, I was thinking shinies like badges - fluff.  Maybe furniture or clothing options.  Not things one simply must have to be competitive - that can make playing as fun as washing the dishes.

Holiday event type loot is fun. 

Fun loot.

Not disguise-a-level-50-to-become-a-level-55 loot.

Honestly, I'd settle for more map variety. More room options, more configurations. I'm level 38, and I know which map I'm on in every mission in a few minutes at most.

Wow. I'm working on my third 50 and I still haven't picked it up. I've got a pretty good sense of some of the ordinary cave maps, but all I remember of them from character to character is the parts that give me fits - that huge labyrinth of tunnels going east to west, and that end room that's in the center of a circle of passageways. I still couldn't tell you from the first few rooms whether a cave map would end in that (&^@#$ 5 layer room.

I _do_ know that there's only one, maybe two, variations of each map with a locked door in it, and if you need to find keys the possibilities go way down. They need to work on that.

I definitely have all the room layouts down pat, though. Except maybe for one of the office rooms with three floors - the big one which is basically a large multilayered corner turn with a little passage on the first floor cutting through the filled-in corner - I haven't seen that one enough to get a sense for where they hide things in it. This helps a little, but it's no win button - for example, in that end-cave room where you start off trekking some distance under an overhang, I know stuff likes to hang out right on the lip and open up on you as soon as you clear the overhang, but for the life of me I've got no idea how to look up there without actually exposing the character to fire.

--GF

Halloween Event Begins October 18th (http://www.cityofheroes.com/community/event_halloween2006.html)

ooooh!  I'm dressing up like Spiderman!

Preliminary patch notes for Issue 8 are up:

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=2092861

Doesn't seem like anything major.  Kinda dissappointing.

It's mostly a hero issue, as they've said a bunch.

Plus, Veteran Rewards are not included in the early stages of test.  Will be in a bit later.

It's on test now, btw.

(Also, there was a post saying "Yes, this issue is a bit smaller than the previous ones, but we're planning on releasing them more frequently now.")

But yes, it is a little small.  I was hoping there'd be a "Global Damage Adjustment" change.  :evil:

Looks like something accidentally snuck its way into this patch.

http://s16.photobucket.com/albums/b27/Madashes2ashes/COH/college/

Bumping up hover is long overdue. Nice to know the changes to teleport before I took it as a power. Still need easier respec :P

First videos from I8 testing.

NDA? What NDA?

Police-band radio and the new flight poses (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnpPAjo1nqE), transitioning into the brand new Faultline (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ky9yNRPgrR0), and also a Safeguard mission (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjS77VFZy6c), which is run on double speed and kinda blurry so there's not much interesting to see.

--GF

Still doesn't make up for the major nerfage it got thanks to ED.

As at October 31, ED will be 12 months old.

Just making an observation.

Although we've been cautioned not to take the current invention implementation seriously (http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=shibboleth&Number=6711124&bodyprev=#Post6711124), it looks like a major function of the invention system is processing Salvage into Enhancements.  I imagine that these enhancements will be of superior potency to Single Origin enhancements.  This may neccessitate loosening the Enhancement Diversification limitations, which currently maxxes out at three single origins.

Quite the opposite.  One of the reasons for ED was so they could make enhancements at were stronger than an SO and not allow someone with lots of them to be significantly better than anyone else.  (See also Hamidon Enhancements.)

The problem is for powers that can only slot limited types.  Defensive sets more specifically.  That blaster could max out damage, accuracy, range and recharge.  Controllers and Defenders usually have multiple options.  Primary or Secondary in most cases.  But several tanker primaries and scrapper secondaries get to max out defense or resistance, which they have likely already done.  They need more options.

A good counterargument.

Well, whatever it turns out to be, I can say this much with some level of certainty: Supergroups are going to have a hard time milking salvage out of their members.  Right now the only thing Salvage is good for is building base components, but once they become a necessary part to producing more effective enhancements I expect they'll become in demand pretty quickly.  To the point where there may need to be measures to prevent broadcast spam of salvage trade.

So, further news from Issue 8 on test:

You now get little icons by your contact's names when you have an open story arc or mini-arc from them. It's this kinda open book thing with a yellow cover for story and a red cover for mini.

Also, heroes now get the same shared mission complete technology villains have always had. Maybe now there won't be 5,000 people all trying to do their own Frostfire.

Also, there are some new tiles showing up in the office and warehouse missions. Most of them are geomorphically identical to old tiles (same room connections), but with different geometry. They aren't just for custom missions, either, I've seen them in the normal rank and file. (Maybe there are new cave/sewer/tech lab/Oranbega tiles too, but I haven't been in enough of those to tell.)

Also, Cat Ears For Men.
(http://glazius.tripod.com/ArcticLynx.jpg)

Also, Dr. Delilah Stein. She can catalog my ancient treasures _anytime_.
(http://glazius.tripod.com/DocDelilah.jpg)

Further bulletins as events warrant.

--GF

Thanks for the info.

Hmm, lets see here:

1) Heroic Mayhem Missions (Police Scanner).
2) Better mission management.
3) Shared mission completion for heroes.

...

Exactly why is my plan to get a Hero to 50 before this issue is released?
Ah yes, because I'm prone to self-delusion.

Dammit, I've got two 30ish heroes that are climbing to 50 the hard way right now and probably have outleveled much of the cool new features of this issue.  I should put some serious consideration towards playing a Villain for awhile, or taking a break until this issue is out.

Trick or Treat!  Starts today.  (http://www.terranuts.com/forums/images/smilies/pumpkin_flame.gif)

Heroes are teh sucks! Eat lead, suckas!

Love,
The Conniving Cpt Croaker

Actually, I'm thinking I'lll stick with my original plan which goes something like: "Take a hero to 50, play a Villain until next issue is released, then play Kheldian to check out new CoH content."   The only question is if I'll actually get a hero from 27/32 (depending on which I stick with) to 50 before the next issue comes out.  I wish Cryptic had made Kheldians a veteran reward for, say 3-6 months of play.

The Halloween event I want to check out, but work has me away from home all day today.

In other news, I had thought CoH immune to Guild Politics, but I had an interesting demonstration that was not the case yesterday.  Last night, my Supergroup leader went into a major hissy-fit because people in a splinter Supergroup wouldn't come assist him with getting a mission done.  So, that splinter Supergroup went poof, and a lot of players whose alts that Supergroup went their seperate ways.

And to think that I don't really consider myself a Hardcore player.  I can fairly feel the hook embedded in my cheek where Cryptic has me fished in right now.

If you take someone from the low 30s to 50 in the month or so until Issue 8 is live... well, for one, you're not going to want to play any CoH for a while.

Having just taken a character from 18 to 32 in the space of 9 or 10 days, I'm nearly to the point of wanting a CoH vacation already. 

I'm currently waffling between Scrapper (which is fast-paced fun) and a Controller (which has more freedom of choice in combat), which is pretty bad sign I may be enjoying neither.  Actually, I'm enjoying both for their unique qualities.  However, the ease in which I can identify shortcomings in either (Scrappers are shallow, Controllers are slow) is leading to the alt-a-holicism that is cutting into my sense of continuity with either. Leveling one character to 50 takes time enough without me inadvertently trying to level up two. 

Choosing to go to the City of Villains is an entirely different can of worms.  I'd functionally be abandoning both characters outright for having outleveled much of the enhancements the next issue likely would bring (the Scrapper is 27, the Controller 32).  Throwing a villain into the mix just soups up the alt-a-holicism that much more by adding yet another character to entice my notice.

So basically, I'm caught between a mental rock and a hard place, my only real escape (other than quitting the game entirely) is to get one or the other to 50 before the issue is released.  That might be achievable if I can stick to a single character, but which?  Potent Scrapper or Flexible Controller? 

I've been wrestling with that for about half a week now since I discovered the Phantasm does not, in fact, make a Controller's damage particularly great.  That's too bad, it would have made the Scrapper's exceptional damage output a moot point, but Cryptic is too good at balancing for such an easy out.

[Edit: Here's an idea, if I don't get a 50th Hero by the time the new issue is out, I'll start a new Blaster.  Potency and relatively good sophistication in one package.  Sure, they die if they get sneezed on wrong, but that just makes things interesting.]

Psh, you're burned out.  Take a break.  If you force yourself to keep going you'll end up hating it and never go back.

Good idea. Blasters, if played just stupidly enough, are real damage monsters, to the point that the OHSHITIT'SINMYFACE melee attack most blasters get at level 10 is on part with a scrapper's FINAL ASSAULT at 32.

Stupidly Obvious Question - you've got buildup for your scrapper, right? I just remember the ideas I had reading through the manual, some of which went "increases damage for a short period of time? Doesn't sound useful". I was wrong. So very, very wrong.

As far as damage on your illusion controller, part of that should be coming from the opposition's heavy hitter (yay Deceive), if you're soloing. Sure it ramps down experience slightly, but that damage is only counted for 1/4 when the XP is split, so you can get 1/5 damage out of your phantasm and/or army (when up) and still get 1/2 credit.

Also, safeguards and shared mission completion apply to heroes at all levels, and may actually come into play _more_ at higher levels. Case in point - Tina McIntyre, a Portal Corp contact who always has her first mission set to "investigate a psychic disturbance" which means "take down the Psychic Clockwork King", an archvillain whose opening salvo is a Psychic Wail, the tier-9 desperation nova of the psychic blast set. I'm betting that one is going to be a popular target for shared completion.

Police bands and safeguards can also break up the missioning from 35-40, where apparently a lot of heroes are stealthing missions on heroic with max debt, or something, and run out of stuff to do at 37 or so.

The only thing you might want to force yourself to do is get an extra costume from the Halloween people, and if you're in an SG whose members are badge completionists, you may just be able to pick the parts for that out of your group salvage. (Also, check the description on the Hamidon costume. It's _hilarious_.)

--GF

One thing that's been bugging me in CoV is the lack of easy respecs. You don't know well enough from the description how a power is going to work or how it will integrate into your playstyle. I'm still without Acid Mortar or any travel powers because of that (granted, I'm lvl 16 and things spread out a bit pretty soon, but I'd still like more power over my character).

Trick or treats! New costume slot is nice. Turning in more for a respec would be nicer ;) Also, as usual the event brings out people's inner assholes. Had a lot of people jump a door I was getting ready to do, which is just annoying. But then there were a lot of high level players just clicking doors and flying away...spawning a bunch of highlevel mobs on me. That was fucking rude. Goddamned people.

Blaster are glass cannons, no doubt. My hero is an energy/energy blaster. I'd probably take a secondary with more control like electric if I did it again. The knockback punch is just too risky :)

Get to 33 on the Controller and slot the pet.  That's when he starts doing damage.  3 damage and 1 accuracy.  Unslotted, no, they don't hit all that hard.

What's your controller's secondary?

What you're saying rings very, true.  Granted, I've burned out from the game two or three times in the past, so it's now difficult for me to determine this myself.

Oh yes indeed.  It's what makes my Scrapper so very enticing.  Lure a group of mobs into a clump, hit buildup, launch my Ripper (Spines short ranged cone attack) and enjoy orgasmic doom distrubution (http://www.donaldhawthorne.name/grieflink/Screenshots/screenshot_2006-10-16-19-42-57-small.jpg).

This is true.  Battles do go a lot faster when I throw Confuse on the resident bosses/lts.  Experience loss from foes hitting eachother have been about halved from that of release.  Still, use of confuse seems a little sloppy as confused foes might run off and attack other groups.  All those NPCs doing their own thing is a reason why Illusion is often regarded as a sloppy control set.  My real issue is when I have only a single boss left and the Phantom Army is down for recharging.  It takes about 6-10 rounds of a 3 SO Spectral Wounds to take down a boss... and that's with Containment in play.

Totally agreed.

I've doven ahead of other players myself a few times.  I wasn't aware the doors were on a shared timer.  (At least I cleaned up the mobs that spawned in the event of a trick.)

Alright.  One more level of grinding probably wouldn't leave permanent scars, I guess.

Storm Control.  Yes, not the best of the bunch, and quite possibly the worst.  I chose it for fun over potency.  Kinetics, now that would have been potency.

I go for fun over minmax powah, too. Thus my energy/energy blaster. But it really put the hurt on soloing, which is why I've been playing a mastermind. That's going to be funny in another dozen levels when I max out my henchmen. Right now I've got two soldiers, a specops, the force field bot all following me around and I'll have three more henchmen plus placeables like the acid mortar. I'll need a gpu upgrade!

Geldon, I have been thinking about going back to CoX as my primary game, and since you and Sky are both playing, that's now very very very likely (as in, I need to get off my lazy ass and download CoV and reinstall CoH).  My scrapper is around 35 or 37 IIRC...so if you wanted to get your controller to 50 (seeing as how he's already mostly there), we might could work out some kind of mutual playing schedule that would get us there pretty quick.

Obviously, if I get CoV as well, I'll be fooling with that too, but yeah, we could try that.

It would actually make for mildly humorous writing....our attempt at unlocking the Kheldians.  Kind of like the Jedi Holo-grind, but less ghey.

Illusion/Storm is a great combo.

Your Phantasm uses Energy Torrent, and Storm gives you the exact tools you need to bunch all the badguys up for him.

I'm sure you know how to play your set, just take advantage of your positioning abilities and combine it with your pets' AE (Lightning Storm later will make things go even faster).  Freezing Rain will definitely help.

Well, I've tried out the Phantasm with three Single Origin damage enhancers (which is about all the enhancement you can give damage short of applying recharge reducers which probably won't affect a Phantasm).  The damage improved, but it still took me way too long to take down a boss.

With my Scrapper, a boss fight goes like this:
Build Up, Lunge, Ripper, Impale, Lunge.  (This is assuming a critical hit manifest on the Ripperotherwise throw in another Ripper and Impale.)

With my Controller, a boss fight goes like this:
Summon Phantasm (if not already out), Hasten, Blind, Blind (to set up Containment), Freezing Rain (-RES), Spectral Wounds, Spectral Wounds, Spectral Wounds, Spectral Wounds, Blind (to sustain Containment), Spectral Wounds, Spectral Wounds, Spectral Wounds, Blind, Spectral Wounds, Spectral Wounds, Spectral Wounds.
(Phantom Army reduces the number of those Spectral Wounds attacks by about half, but isn't available every fight.)

So, Controllers take a long time to take down foes.  The boss example above is about equivalent to nine minions.  So I've basically two choices here:

1) Go Scrapper and have a fast rate of progress solo or in a group.
2) Go Controller and have a slow rate of progress solo and a fast rate of progression in a Scrapper/Blaster enabled group.

Why settle for #2 when I could have #1?  The Controller possessing a variety of unique effects is all I can really confirm.  The party support might be a little better as well, but then again, the contributon the Scrapper brings in raw Offense/Defense is pretty vital.
Hang on to that credit card!  I'm playing on the Virtue server these days, and Cryptic has yet to figure out these "character transfer" things.   They did it once when they moved some characters to European servers, but they've yet to offer it (http://support.plaync.com/cgi-bin/plaync.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=971) as a service to the players.

Well naturally no AT is going to take down a boss as fast as a scrapper, since scrappers are dubbed the boss-killer AT by Statesman himself and enjoy an increased chance to critical against them.

I find that my Ill/Rad can still solo at a pretty good pace, though, and tear through missions in complete safety.  But no, it's not the visceral feeling you get from a Scrapper, running at high speed from one fight to the next and ripping your opponents to shreds.

That's a more accurate way of looking at it than I have, which the erronous assumption that Controllers should be able to compete in terms of damage.  I guess I'll just have to learn to let go of not being able to go through foes as quickly as a Scrapper.   I must be burning out that I can't seem to muster the patience to settle for less sometimes.  That's where groups come in, I either need to join an existing one or invite a couple damage dealers and yell, "Mush!"

Considering how I'm planning on playing either a Kheldian or a Blaster when Issue 8 comes out (depending on whether or not I earn 50 before then), I really shouldn't stress not doing great damage with my Controller.  Kheldians and Blasters got it in spades.

Depends on the Kheldian.

Pick up Nova and slot it, yeah you'll have damage.

Also, human form Peacebringers have a couple hard hitting attacks.

But as a human Warshade, your Controller's damage is going to seem superior for a good 32 levels.

If you want speed when soloing, you can do ok with a carefully built blaster, stalker, or brute as well.

But ultimately scrapper is going to be > all in terms of soloing speed.

In groups, your controller is adding more than your scrapper, you probably just don't feel it because you only get one-eighth of the benefit. It's a while since I played one of my controllers, but my controller-heavy pet groups (esp. illusion controller groups) used to tear through villians quicker than my scrapper's groups. Controllers are force multipliers, wheras scrappers are just more force.

In retrospect, if Controller + Damage was that important to me, I should have gone Fire/Kinetics.  Fire Imps under the effect of Fulcrum Shift, Speed Boost, and Siphon Power do considerably good damage, I bet.   At least, I've noticed my Phantasm does well with a Fulcrum shift applied.  Phantom Army can't be buffed because they're untouchable by everything.

Forget Fulcrum Shift, imagine those little firemonkeys hopping around at mach 3 with speed boost.

In order to provide (a) Closure and (b) more fuel for this Cryptic-founded fire, I'll mention that I actually ended up settling on the Scrapper, after all.  It was a decision based on the overall flow and aim of the archetypes.  I preferred to be the "visceral" and "soloable" Scrapper over the "prime group lubrication" Controller.  There's something more satisfying about tearing the bad guys to shreds versus confusing them from afar.  I'm not saying that this is universal, people's preferences differ, but in faster-paced gameplay lies my preference.

This might also be of interest to folks who may have noticed my rabid "forced grouping" stance in the "grouping versus solo" argument.  Here I am saying that being able to solo is an important determiner of my playing the character.  However, actually, I don't think it's so much being able to solo, because both the Controller and Scrapper can solo relatively safely.  It has more to do with the flow rate of the game.  A high damage class is going to be able to go through a lot more mobs quicker, while a low damage class is going to have to lean on others to improve their speed of defeating the foes.

That speed actually matters to me probably asserts that, on some level, I'm already burnt (again).  If I'm truly enjoying the journey over the destination, it shouldn't matter if it takes a little longer to get there.

I haven't noticed any grind yet. I think not playing for more than an hour a day has something to do with that. Level 18 with my MM, started a couple alts, also played around a bit with my 26 blaster (I had thought he was 24) to open his costume slot. Apparently he had a free costume upgrade, fee waived. I put a civilian costume in his third slot, red bandana/white tee shirt/blue jeans/motorcycle jacket. Looks funny with his blue skin/white hair/double monocle (picture early in thread).

I started a scrapper, too. Claws/regen, he shreds through mobs, alright. The MM is still a strong solo class, though. Some people have said I should be playing on a higher difficulty with the MM but I'm already fighting yellow/orange mobs in most missions, maybe a couple white minions near the door. What does raising the difficulty mean in terms of effect on missions? More mobs, higher levels?

Diff 1 = default. Small mob groups. +0 to +1 mob level (compared to yours). No bosses (at least when soloing).
Diff 2: Larger mob groups. +0 to +1 mob level.
Diff 3: Small mob groups. +1 to +2 mob level.
Diff 4: Larger mob groups. +1 to +2 mob level.
Diff 5 = max diff. Small mob groups. +2 to +3 mob level.

If you see mobs outside these level ranges:
- you are in someone else's mission
- you are doing a mission you got before you leveled up
- the mission itself is designed that way

Edit: forgot to mention that higher diff settings give higher xp rewards for completing the mission.

My Scrapper runs missions on Unyielding (Diff 4).  It's a great mix of risk:reward, and my occationally slipping up and being taken down confirms I haven't mastered this difficulty yet. 

The thing to remember about difficulities that all heroes/villains aren't alike in terms of overall mission tackling.  It's not just archetype, it's not just power set, but individual powers and how you've slotted them as well as what tactics you use that will determine whether or not you can tackle a Diff 5 missions or still be doing Diff 1 missions at level 50.  I don't think my Scrapper could handle an Invincible Mission (Diff 5) no matter how good my play is because my Dark Armor wouldn't be effective enough at blunting the damage and my Dark Regeneration power can't hit consistantly enough to keep me alive.  I know my Mastermind never went past difficulty 3 or so, and that was with Dark Miasma which rocks on a Mastermind with his henchies set in bodyguard mode, rendering him neigh unkillable with the further assistance of the debuffs in the set.

From my past experience with Masterminds, I'm going to say their damage is pretty acceptable, especially with secondary power set damage boosts like Acid Mortor and Tar Patch involved.  Not nearly as atrocious as Controllers or Defenders in terms of being able to put down a lot of mobs quick, and a lot more durable thanks to being able to manipulate your henchies to keep you alive.  Masterminds are the hard-to-control Epic class of CoV, IMHO.

Hm. I might notch it up to the next level to get bosses once in a while. Probably kick my ass all over the place :) I do pretty good, though, with the fully-slotted triage beacon and an occasional henchman respawn. Right now I've got Soldiers, Spec Ops, and Triage Beacon fully slotted, not sure if anything else is slotted atm. Figured from my pet class experience in other games I should dump all my specialization into the henchmen. In tough battles I try to keep everyone in triage beacon range and drop caltrops on the beacon to keep enemies out of melee range.

Just got the acid mortar at level 18, my last pick was the force field at 16. I still miss travel powers :)

I keep forgetting about bodyguard mode. I need to set up more macros.

I don't know how different it is with mercs, but for my MM's pets I only 5-slot the two lower tiers, and that was because I didn't know what else to do with the slots.  The lowest tier I would probably 4-slot if I had anywhere better to put that extra slot.

I did 6 slot the final pet.  He's worth it.

You've got the medic, though, so tossing a heal or two in there might not be a bad idea, plus all the side effect that the spec ops can pull off, probably worth it to slot all the way on those.

Well, not necessarily. I mean, I've noticed that classes play differently, and _feel_ different on top of that. If you like the way your scrapper feels, there's nothing wrong with that.

--GF

I've received a costume slot for returning stuff to Granny... is that all I get?  No costume?  No candy?  I only resubbed because it's nearly Halloween... I resub to almost everything during holidays.  It's fun.  Not going to bother with WoW, I don't think... not until the expansion in 2012... probably the day after the world ends.

I think they hand out free costume changes when they publish an issue that contains new costume items. So, if you stick around until Issue 8, which is coming out "soon", you'll likely be able to put a new costume in your new costume slot, for free.

My new feature wish is for a panel that you can view, telling you how many costume tokens and respecs you have available.

There are also a bunch of free costume tokens coming with Veteran Rewards.

But yes, the badges and extra costume slot are the rewards for Halloween.

While I love the extra costume slot (which takes almost no time to get btw), it would have been nice if new costume items might drop as a result of the holiday events.  Something like the santa hat way back when.

EDIT: nm, ignore this post, I should read more.

2 out of 3.

Christmas gave the hats, Valentine's Day gave Togas.  The downside of this is that if you weren't around at this time, you don't get a santa hat or toga.

Teabag (http://www.the-swarm.org/Emotes/GhostMote/TEABAG.gif) emote added with I8

That is a much more pleasant emote than I thought it was going to be.

For those who don't already know, the I8 preupdater is live.

Save yourself some time by downloading I8 before it goes live - the preupdater will launch at the end of a CoH/V session after you quit out.

Thanks, I didn't notice that when I quit out of CoV and it pre-updated.

I don't think his post was meant for those who play regularly.

Thanks, it wasn't obvious at first and Sky's comment seemed totally necessary.

Glad I could help.

 :hello_kitty_2:                              :hello_kitty_2:

                     :hello_kitty_2:

 :hello_kitty_2:                              :hello_kitty_2:
 :hello_kitty_2: :hello_kitty_2: :hello_kitty_2: :hello_kitty_2: :hello_kitty_2:

Are you making a confession (http://www.sanriotown.com/onlinegame/)?

MAGIC HAPPY LOVE TIME FOR ALL FRIENDS TO HAPPY

Go buy WOW Butters.

Issue 8 is live.

Forums promptly start wondering what's taking issue 9 so long.

Click on the train gates while they're open and they still work.

You get a book icon by a contact's name if you have a storyarc in progress - red for mini-arcs, yellow for full arcs. You can have any number of mini-arcs but only two full ones.

Cryptic attempts to provoke intellectual property lawsuits from everyone who's ever made a cop show and/or movie.

Further bulletins as events warrant.

--GF

Cool. I'll also report anything noteworthy. Or not.

Level 28! Amazing and dizzying new heights of avatard power!

That said I kinda ran out of things to take and dipped into the speed/health/stamina pool. I never really need those, though. Maybe leadership, but the gains are kinda tiny, aren't they? *shrug* MM's rock.

Live?  Hrmph, and here I was hearing that today would just be a big maintenence day.  Those developers do love to surprise their players, don't they? 

Yes, I've been resubbed to this game lately.

I think Assault and maybe eventually Tactics are worth it for the Mastermind.  Mine certainly has the endurance for it, and it helps all the minions.

I have to struggle to run out of endurance on my merc/traps MM. I'm loaded with all three merc attack powers, though. I'd probably drop at least the AoE, if not the burst, but keep the slug if I respec ever. But if I only use slug (as usual), I'm never under half end. Even having to call in new mercs, drop traps, etc doesn't dent it too badly and nothing is slotted for end reduction. Overall, it's a nice change from my CoH blaster who was always running out of end. and getting slaughtered in solo play.

I have none of the Mastermind attack powers.  My bots do a lot more damage than me so it is not worth the power slots.  I can easily out-heal the damage of any encounter where having the attacks would make a difference.

Keep the slug, the knockback is decent as well as dmg is worth around your three lowest merc attack combined in one round. (If you slot it for dmg)
I didn't really see what the fuss is about when a mastermind helps to add dps a bit. Just don't pick up other attacks like grenade & burst, they're too low dmg to be worth it and AoE is just gonna get aggro on your butt.

Burst was helpful at low levels, but the grenade is just a bit too draining on endurance to be worth a little cheap crowd control. Slug is a great attack for pulling, for runners, for a decent dps boost (it's about half the damage of my commando's current big attack, with just one damage SO). I was going to remove some slots from the soldiers, but I might keep all six and slot for accuracy (I like the 3 SO heal slots for the medic). I'm on the fence with the specops guys, might just leave them 2 damage SOs and slot up some traps for now. I have my triage beacon 6 slotted, 3 recharge and 3 heals, but I rarely use it thanks to the medic.
I don't understand what you mean.

I think he meant instead of doing dmg, he bought more time for his minions to sustain more dmg by shooting 'heals' instead of 'damage'
but his logic doesn't mean he can kill faster. He just equates it to having heals to cover up for extended fights when an attack power would've shortened it.

She.

Right. Ok, I'll rephrase. I understand that you mean you can heal rather than cause damage for better effect in tougher fights. What build are you with robots that you can heal them? Being merc/traps, I have triage beacon, but I rarely use it and it doesn't have a huge heal boost, it just augments the medic.

As an aside: giving the medic the shortest range gun is really annoying, since he tends to draw aggro by being the closest to the mob clusters and I have to keep a seperate macro to keep heeling him back out of aggro range. Stupid design idea imo.

Personally, I thought that the Force Field Generator, 3 slotted with additional defense buff, was a lot more useful than the Triage Beacon.   But the Triage Beacon is a lot more subtle.  I also favored the tactic of putting all my henchmen into bodyguard mode and opening up with the AOE attack, which resulted in the damage getting nicely distributed between me and all my henchies.  But then, I had a PBAOE heal which probably healed a lot faster than Triage Beacon, so I could get away with that.

Are you guys being intentionally vague? An AoE heal from /what/? :P

My force field generator is 2 slotted for defense, but it's pretty meh. I keep it up 'just because', mostly. Don't notice it doing much.

Triage Beacon?

EDIT: Meh, never come in on a conversation in progress...

Twilight Grasp.

To-hit attack that debuffs accuracy, damage, and regen and launches a PBAoE heal around yourself.

--GF

Yeah, having /Dark secondary renders a Mastermind one heck of a tank thanks to Twilight Grasp and the ranged AOE debuffs.

I'm not sure what the base defense of the force field generator is, but if you've ever noticed a big difference in your survival from popping a single defense inspirations then you've a good idea what difference it can make.  It's probably somewhere between a 12.5%-33% base enhancable to about double of that with 3 SOs.

Ah, it sounded like you meant you had an AoE heal with a /traps MM.

Dark is a cool secondary, just doesn't work with Croaker (who is a soldier-type). I rolled up an undead guy with undead/dark, but those zombies are sooo sloooow moving. I'll probably roll another MM because they are cool soloers and there is a decent variety with different subsets. I have a few alts (of course, it's CoX!), undead/dark, robots/traps, ninja/arrow and a thug/traps I just rolled on another server (modelled after the Freaks).

Everything has pretty much been said for me by this point, but to put it in my own words here you go.  I am Robots/Dark as Glazius said.  Sorry for any confusion.

I can shorten the fights by taking attacks, or I can keep my robots alive indefinately by healing.  My DPS is lower of course, although my survivability greatly increases.  The enemies die either way and saving ten seconds is really not a big deal to me.  I do not know if Traps has as effective mitigation powers as Dark, however I find focusing only on minion powers and secondaries works well, plus it is fun because I have so many tricks besides "Lantyssa smash!".

I don't focus on attack powers. I took them at a low level, hoping they'd issue a respec at some point so I could alter them later. They got me through the early levels where it was a significant portion of my total dps. My current build (from memory, might be a bit off) is:

Soldiers - 3 heal (180 heal at lvl 28), 3 dam (changing to 3acc or moving these slots)
SpecOps - 3 dam, 2 acc, 1 immobilize
Commando - 3 dam (still opening slots on him)
Caltrops - 1 recharge, 1 slow
Triage Beacon - 3 recharge, 3 heal
Acid Mortar - 2 recharge, 2 debuff
Poison Trap - 2 recharge, 2 hold
Force Field Gen - 2 defense

Burst, Slug, Grenade, Equip Merc, Web Grenade all single slotted. Power pools: Hover, Fly, Swift all single slotted.

So yeah, I'm mostly slotted into my troops and secondaries. Acid mortar is real nice when facing higher level mobs, because of the level difference of the lower level mercs. Poison trap I'm iffy on, I wish the hold were longer and the other secondaries seem weak. I'm not sure what you mean by mitigation, but traps has some decent crowd control, debuff and dots and really makes a huge difference in battles.

If you're doing any PvP, Poison Trap is very nice.

Or it is on my Ninja/Poison MM, but the available powers differ so YMMV.

Yeah, it's different for Traps.

So, this year's holiday event is on Test.

In addition to the two free powers (debt protection and a one-time gift for somebody which does HAPPY HOLIDAYS damage), there's a promised return of last year's present hunt (later), a happy fun ski chalet floating in the void by Pocket D with real working snow (sadly no powerups for /em backflip shooting off a high ridge), and a mission to save next year, because the Red Caps will steal anything that's not nailed down.

The mission map is a thing of beauty, a snowed-over Croatoa with icy rivers and ponds, where you hunt snowbeasts for a key to open the door to an ice cave. You get your pick from four rewards, fur-trimmed gloves and boots and the temp powers "Golden Rings" (lasts 12 days, guess how many show up in the hold animation) and "Renewal of Light" (a blue Rise of the Phoenix, lasts 8 days). Each has its own badge. Collect them all! (still no word on what if anything you get from collecting them all)

--GF

Is there anything you can get (costume pieces, temp powers, etc.) on the regular servers?

So, uh, no? Aside from the metric ton of stuff they introduced with I8 already, that is.

--GF

Yes I know the event you described was on Test. I was wondering if there was other special stuff going on on the regular servers. They did in the past so that's why I asked.

No, there's nothing special going on on the regular servers, though Granny Beldam and Annah are back if you have costume bits you wanted to turn in.

--GF

are trenchcoats in the game?

yes

It is now City of Wings and Trenchcoats.

And bunnygirls.

Don't forget the bunnygirls.

--GF

I'm trying to forget the bunnygirls, believe me.  Oh, and catgirls are now more catlike now.

People are just playing with their new toon toys.  It'll die off soon.  Hopefully.  Maybe.  Maybe not.  Probably not.  Damn.

They're bringing back the Winter Event starting tomorrow until the 15th.  So, if you didn't get your santa hat or all the special badges, now's your chance.

Curses!  PC rebuild plus purchase of Marvel Ultimate Alliance had me finger on the CoX cancellation button, but the winter event draws me back.  It's almost as cool as the Pitfall mini-game in MUA.

My sub just ran out. See ya next year!

I'm disappointed in the belly shirts.

Me too.  They're horrible, aren't they?  They should let women and gay men design women's clothing.

I envy the lady's shoulder kittens and pandas.

I keep forgetting!

    

 HERE!  (http://coh.warcry.com/scripts/news/view_news.phtml?site=36&id=67894)

HERE TOO! (http://kotaku.com/gaming/city-of-heroes/city-of-heroes-update-9-details-231042.php)

Where are my damn new flight animations?

I'm still waiting for my hammer that returns when I throw it as well as summons thunder and lightning.  Oh, and a Stan Lee UI mod that changes all dialogue so each sentence ends with an exclamation point.

MAKE MINE TRADEMARKED!

EXCELSIOR!

Wasn't there a Valentine's Day event last year?  And didn't it start much earlier?  I want an event!   :heartbreak:

Dammit.

Toga!  Toga!  Toga!

There is a VD event. I expect it to go live this weekend.

By VD you mean Valentine's Day, right?  Not venereal disease which is the event that usually comes AFTER Valentine's Day?   :|

Now I want to make a defender or the closest CoV analog to a defender (I forget which that'd be..corruptor?) and name him either Scabies or Capt. Pennicilin...

ETA -- The should make the Valentine's day event a double xp week....that'd be luv.

Yeah - VD = Valentine's Day.

It's a rehash of the original one, but with more rewards and will be more repeatable afaik.

More I9 info is meant to come out this week to.

Also: no-one has yet mentioned Positron's interview in which he said "no" to a lot of things and "yes" to some other things (http://coh.warcry.com/scripts/news/view_news.phtml?site=36&id=68479). Funnily enough, it's the "no" side of the equation that caused spasms on the official forums.

Oh, my main would Definitely love some Street Fighting if it ever sees the light of day. That is the fighting style I originally envisioned for the character; I settled for DM because it's actually pretty close to what I was looking for, but not quite.

I ran through it yesterday.  It takes about an hour or so, I guess.  I think I spent about two hours total fooling around in Pocket D, largely because it took a bit to get a group together.  Each side has two missions to complete.  It's pretty much necessary for each side to do all four missions -- so you need to find a team.  Once you finish those, you get a badge and a temp power.  In addition to that, you can also get the spider smasher badge rather easily.  Those four missions also unlock the DJ Zero mission, which seems to be infinitely repeatable.  Completing it five times gives you several costume piece options, a couple of badges and a gladiator. 

I haven't figured out how to enter the part of Pocket D that requires the "Gold Club card."  I have no idea whether this is a mission, a reward from the gladiator matches, or what.  I am, however, busying myself thinking of silly gimmick characters to make with either the toga, laurel and sandals costume set or with the heart costume set.  I'm tempted to go for an Animal House theme and make Otter or Bluto. 

http://www.cityofheroes.com/store/goodversusevil/

Wow, that's weak.  I buy the wrong code online to get CoV and miss out on some marginally nifty teleportation ability.

I never bought that and I use Pocket D all the time.

Apparently that version gives you some thing that allows you to TP into Pocket D and quite possibly to anywhere from within it.  (It was explained to me once, but I forget)  I use Pocket D as a shortcut too, but that door was bugging me.  Now that I know it's just a reward for buying the right e-box, I just think it's weak.

You can buy Just the reward pack as well.

You can buy the code online for $10 and get the Pocket D teleportation power (which makes a difference when you are coming in from Crey's Folly or Peregrine Island or somewhere remote) and a jetpack (which is a 30 second vertical flight power - superspeeders apparently love it and it does come in handy when you want a bit more from superjump). It also gives you some more costume options - Justice and Sinister armours which do look quite nice imo.

As for the VD event, you can do DJ Zero's mission up to 10 times per character. Apparently there is also an easter egg in the NW of that map, but I haven't seen it yet.

Worth noting that the Pocket D teleporter has a 30 minute cooldown.

Also, no, you can't teleport to anywhere from Pocket D.  There are 3 zones from which each side can choose to exist.  For villains, you can exit into Sharkhead  Isle, Port Oakes, or St. Martial.  Heroes can exit into Talos Island.....aaaaaaaaand I wanna say King's Row and Founder's Falls.  That could be wrong.

Oh, so what's the point of the teleporter?  It gets you TO pocket D?  And then you just use the standard three exit doors? 

You, sir, are correct.  I just found that out before I recently took a hiatus from Co*.  Makes the high-level mission trips not nearly as painful.

I think it's Peregrine instead of Founder's.  Since Founder's and Talos are linked, and Founder's isn't too terribly far from the train, it'd not make much sense. 

Making sense?  In an MMORPG?  Are you serious?

I'd bet a small amount of money that it's Talos but I don't have an active account at the moment to check.  The only entrances to Peregrine that I can remember is from the Talos ferry and a teleporter to the Rikti Crash site.

You're all wrong.  On the hero side it's King's Row, Talos Island, Founders Falls and Faultline.  They put in the new Faultline exit when they redid the zone.

Yeah, it gets you TO Pocket D.  That's why it's a Pocket D Teleporter.

On most servers, that's basically just a way to get to one of those 3 zones without having to go through many more.  On Virtue, it's an instant ticket to the center of the server's roleplaying community.

On  MMORPG.com  (http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm?gameId=3&setView=features&loadFeature=1149&bhcp=1) :


Follow up on  official board  (http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=7773234&page=0&fpart=1&vc=1&nt=29) :

I hate being locked out of the test server.  Fiddling with the new issues is one of the fun things I still like to do in CoX.  I hope this doesn't become a trend.

 :|

Though in fairness to Cryptic, adding loot is a one way ride.  No backsies.  It's no wonder they're terrified and want extra layers of testing.

This is a game about superheroes.  They should indulge more in braviness.

I'm sure they would, if they could trust that the forums wouldn't be drowned under the weight of the whining that such changes would result in.

However, it's a comic book game, and comic book people whine better than pretty much any group outside of Trekkies.