In case anyone still cares...

[Glazius]

Issue 2 is now live. Atlas Park sags under the weight of people trying to get their capes, and the login servers are being temperamental at best.

Missions now have slightly harder mobs, give much more XP, and have twists like locked doors and broader environmental damage effects. There are two new zones for the lowbies, four new zones for the highbies, and the trials are in for the Hollows, Eden, and three different varieties of Terra Volta (the respec NPC is located at the south end of Valor Bridge, at least for the 24-33 crowd, after which you head to Galaxy City assuming you survive). Also for the mid-range people, instanced outdoor missions are replacing some of the older ones - the Tsoo and Warriors have the mother of all throwdowns in one of them, f'rex.

Capes and flashy sparkly/misty/burny/glowy auras are available from the City Representative in Atlas Park.

Scattered all over the server are "badge spots" - little icons on the ground you can walk over to get a badge added to your collection. There are also history plaques around the city, and completing a set of them (the attempt of the Lost to take control of the whole city, or the Might for Right Act which parallels the draft into the Vietnam War...) will  get you a badge.

Also badgeworthy - knocking down X mobs in a villain group. Damned, Bone Daddies, Gears, Mages, Sorcerors - even Babbage, Kraken, and Adamastor, for values of X approaching 1. Reaching X0th level. Taking large amounts of damage, healing large amounts of damage, getting large amounts of influence, getting large amounts of debt. Collecting other badges. Completing certain missions (and don't worry, they mined for missions and task forces, or so I've seen, so you get those badges retroactively).

And the mysterious 'accolades', unlocked by badge combinations, that do insignificant things like give you 5% extra hit points or endurance.

Exemplaring, which is the opposite of sidekicking.

And, oh yeah, most of the standard villain sets have gotten a few more additions to their bag of tricks. Tsoo throw caltrops, Outcasts use more elemental powers earlier, the 5th column carries stun grenades, Troll minions break out superstrength, Warrior minions break out scrapper/tanker weapons instead of the thug ones.

This is just stuff I've noticed on test, there's probably more than that going live.

Said it before and I'll say it again, it feels like the game should have been shipped this way. Everything's so natural.

--GF

[HaemishM]

Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet.

[Dren]

Nice.  I'll have to check it out tonight.  Thanks for the update.

[Sable Blaze]

I'll add a bit more.

The respec TF and cape mission are mean. Missions in general have much higher spawn rates and more variable levels within that spawn. Used to be you saw sets of 2 or 3--three white or one white, one yellow. Now you see sets of 4-8. Anywhere from -1 to +1. That's solo. Add considerably more for duo and it gets serious from there. XP for completion is about 5x as high as it was.

Villain groups have a LOT more tricks. The afore-mentioned Tsoo are typical (I had a lot of fun with them tonight with my recently unretired katana/regen scrapper). Outcasts, Trolls, Lost, 5th Column, etc., have a lot more tricks. Lots of elemental damage attacks. Nazis are very fond of chucking grenades now, and these do some fairly serious damage. Outcasts in SC and Trolls in Skyway are a real threat--many boss types displaying such abilities as stone armors, mudpots, invincible and temporary invulnerability (and, yes, you can stun it off of them).

The new katana and MA abilities and animations are in. Both sets are VERY nice. I have a quibble with the left handed katana/run animation, but that's all it is--a quibble. Vastly improved sets.

Tankers are seen the first of (hopefully) many improvements. I broke out my little invul/EM tank for quick look. The only thing readily apparent is a significant reduction of END cost for attacks. Tis is only lvl13, but she'd typically go out of END after about three whites. Tonight, she could run from group to group of whites and beat them down. 7-9 before getting low on END and having to go auto-barrage. More telling was a boss fight. One orange con bone daddy and three white con skulls = beatdown with 1/4 END left. This was unheard of before the patch (I wouldn't have dared take on an orange boss, much less the bone daddy, before this).

All in all, a pretty good patch. There are some issues (Rikti hitting for double physical damage + usual energy damage, some rumors of status protections being borked again, higher end respec mission not scaling correctly, etc), but all in all a lot of fun and I certainly feel much more interest in the game.

Come check it out!

[Alkiera]

Also, they redid the Scrapper/Martial Arts powerset, the first two powers especially are much faster refresh and faster animations... they replaced the 'dot' multi-kick thing with a much faster attack, and the 'charge' kick no longer charges.  All in all, they're much more fun to play, at least 1-6, which is as high as I got them in either incarnation.

They also redid all the attack animations for Scrapper/Katana, so they would look different from the formerly identical Scrapper/Broad Sword set.  My buddy who plays a katana scrapper was pleased when he played with it on test.

When I was playing the Matrial artist to see the new animations/powers I hit  a few of the redone levels, mostly 5th column areas.  All I have to say is Wow.  They've done a good job of personalizing the generic area, in this case the 'warehouse' set, with weird computers, large flags and posters, I could hear someone shouting thru a bullhorn in the background, it was really neat.

--
Alkiera

[jpark]

And they nerfed auto-catassing.

Not that I or my friend would have been doing this:

COT portal missions spawn mobs at a constant rate based on the presence of heroes in the room.  Put in a healer (auto) and a damage dealer with an auto AoE (targeting but not hitting the portal) and you could get a character up to level 30 in 2 days.  You just touch the keyboard when the internet connection fails otherwise - autocatass.

Anyway that's what I heard folks were doing ;)

It is corrected now - spawns from the portals no longer give exp when killed.

[Glazius]

The new katana and MA abilities and animations are in. Both sets are VERY nice. I have a quibble with the left handed katana/run animation, but that's all it is--a quibble. Vastly improved sets.

That's for a fairly prosaic reason - the default ready stance for heroes is left foot forward. Instead of making you do the hokey pokey when you draw/sheath your katana they opted to make the animations left-handed.

--GF

Yeah, and art concerns of all things are also holding up the ability to stack ice tank/stone tank/dark scrapper armors.

[Sable Blaze]

Actually, the female run animation is bugged. It's really the over-sized male animation. Needless to say, it looks peculiar (actually, it's kinda embarassing) with the female models. That's why it was mentioned.

And one last thing: with the revamps of villain abilities, DA is pretty much out in the cold right now. It NEEDS a revamp. Stacking armors would seem the answer...but...if DA is practially useless right now, it'll be huge if it's armors stack in their present state. It will be interesting to see what Cryptic does with DA.

[kaid]

Yup the single armor types just don't cut it any more. Armor sets like dark armor and earth really need to be able to stack their defenses now. Man the cape missions are deffinatly tough those stupid lost were really going wild with CC last night even more so than usual.

Must say though that people are really clamoring for my force field defender in groups now with the changes.

Still I got my nice long flowing cape and it looks very snazy. We plan to check out the hollows tonight as well.


Kaid

[Fargull]

Everything screams better.  The mission xp seems fixed.  My DM/Regen scrapper is tearing up even more now...

[Xilren's Twin]

Of course, now I have too much gaming and not enough time; but it's a GOOD problem to have.

Betweem Fable, the football league, MtGO and CoH.  My gaming plate is full.

I'll carve out some time and get cape bound pronto.

Xilren

[ClydeJr]

The GUI got a workover too. You can view your enhancement inventory without having to open up the screen with all your powers. You can now give single enhancements and inspirations to other players without having to wait on them to say OK. This means you can give that Awaken inspiration to a dead hero quickly. There's a bunch of different chat tabs.

The Hollows is one heck of a mean place, especially around lvl 10. There's a sorta safe zone right inside the zone from Atlas Park. That's where most groups start from. Occasionally you'll see a huge train of Trolls/Outcasts flood into the area. A group of us started working on the mission arc there. Outcasts are now really tough. Shockers can use the Hurricane power and can heal (Kill them first). There are two new types (Torches which throw fire and Coolers which throw ice). When we tried a door mission in the Hollows, there were bad guys right inside the front door and right outside the elevators. That means whoever goes in gets the crap pounded out of them ("Hey, you're the tanker, you go first!"). I've also noticed that the missions in the Hollows have larger spawns than in missions in other areas like Atlas Park.

Portals from another dimension are opening up all over and bad guys start coming thru and keep coming until the portal is destroyed. At high levels its the Rikti. At lower levels, its these guys called the Ruuluuluu or something like that. Big hulking Brutes and floating Watchers/Observers (think giant spiky beholders).

The servers have been a little unstable and laggy though. They say its on OS issue and they're working with Microsoft to fix it.  All in all, I think its a good patch.

[Glazius]

There are two new types (Torches which throw fire and Coolers which throw ice).

And Chargers, who are like Sprockets except not mechanical or vulnerable to smashing/energy/psychic, and Crushers, who use Stone Fist and have Stone Skin.

Outcast minions are now elementally powered - it's nice flavor, but I don't think they've been significantly upped damagewise.

Though since they're not doing smashing/lethal it probably seems that way.

--GF

[Big Gulp]

Managed to respec my tanker last night, and now I've got him on a perpetual Unstoppable loop.  I've also got Hasten and Rage maxed out with recharge reductions so they're always up.

Did away with Unyielding Stance altogether, and now, while my tanker is a lot more efficient, also plays a lot more dangerously.  Unstop will always be up, but every two minutes your health drops down to 10% and you lose all endurance.  So basically I've got to either hit dull pain or a health inspir in order to survive.  On rare occasions I don't make it, but in all it just feels a lot more fun to play.

[eldaec]

Now that's what I'm talkin about.

[HaemishM]

What the fuck is that?

[eldaec]

That, good sirs, is a sky-raider anti-gravity matrix.

It enables one to fly slightly slower that 'fly' (still much much faster than hover), but without the insane endurance cost, and without the accuracy penalty.

It also looks fricking cool.

Unfortunately it's only a temp power, and will disappear after it's two hours of flight time have expired.

For now, it's damn handy in a pinch on my Spine/Regen/SuperSpeed scrapper.

[Sable Blaze]

Nifty stuff.

Although, tankers don't exactly lack for slots or abilities. I fail to see why tankers are all hot to drop US and go UNS. UNS is great stuff, but there's still plenty of room for US in a build. DE will screw your recharge to hell and back and so will cold based powers (which are increasingly common).

My invul scrapper has room for both UNS and US with it's associated teleport pool. If she has it, tankers can certainly go both ways, especially with their better base ability numbers.

I always planned for my invul/EM tank to have both. And she still had ability slots to burn in her late 40s on the planner. I guess if you want to be a flying tank, then that's an option.

So it's not a total derail, the respec trial saw some modification today. I gather from some friends' input that the final waves at the reactor are considerably reduced in level. Not sure about exaclty numbers, but I guess they're no longer +4 to the highest level in the party. The trial is still a major undertaking, but nothing like the insanity yesterday.

[Big Gulp]

DE will screw your recharge to hell and back and so will cold based powers (which are increasingly common). .

Yep, and that's why I put a lot of buffer room into my build.  Instead of just 4 recharge reductions in UNS I have all 6 slotted that way.  Same for hasten, just to make sure that that's always up and somewhat countering any slow effects.  I'd need many, many stacked slow effects for it to catch me with my pants down, and I try to avoid those fights.

Yeah, it's inconvenient, but I really, really hate not being able to move, and I will not be one of those jackass teleporting tanks.  Granted, this is still a lot more dangerous than conventional fighting (which is why I really don't regard it as an exploit), but I also enjoy it a lot more.

[Sable Blaze]

I don't consider UNS and the related stuff an exploit. It certainly does have its downsides. I just don't see it as mutually exclusive in regards to US.

I use US on my own, where I don't have to deal with group members and can take my time. I prefer it for DE (swarms...). UNS is better in groups and most street fighting. It's VASTLY preferable vs. Carnies (for obvious reasons). Probably now for Nemesis, too, as they now have stuns and the usual heavy elemental AoEs. It's flat out necessary for Malta. Nothing less will do for those swine. What little experience I have vs. Rularuu makes me think stacking US and UNS might be a good idea in their particular case...

I just believe in having plenty of tools available for use in any given situation.

Although, if SR does get resists, I may jump ship. Practiced Brawler is just perfect for scrappers. I'm not such a gambler that I'd rely on SR in its present state, however.

[Mesozoic]

The new Mission XP is teh luv.  This morning I finished a clockwork story arc at level 19.  On "Mission Complete" I got 1,000 XP and 500 Inf.  After stepping outside and calling my contact I got another 1,000 XP and 500 Inf and my choice of a level 22 DO.  

Other one-off missions get me 875 XP and 875 Inf at level 19.  Many times the fastest XP is to get a "Kill X foozle gang" mission, wipe out a bunch of greys in about 3 minutes, and reap the XP.  

They should consider not giving mission credit for greys, IMO.

[eldaec]

Many times the fastest XP is to get a "Kill X foozle gang" mission, wipe out a bunch of greys in about 3 minutes, and reap the XP.  

They should consider not giving mission credit for greys, IMO.

Probably right, but generally I seem to run out of missions before I get access to the next tier of missions. So in the end by killing even-cons or higher for the 'kill x' missions works out faster, as the xp from them counts against the total I have to get from street hunting on all the x4 and x9 levels.

[Mesozoic]

I guess we'll have to see if thats still the case, post-Issue 2.  

In other news, there are apparently some pretty cool accolades being given out.

[Sable Blaze]

The badge thing is insane. There's a HUGE amount of different things to find and/or earn. We were joking in SG last night about the Tough badge (100,000 damage taken) and how I'd gotten it in about 5 minutes in the Manticore TF--and if there was a 1,000,000 pt award. Well, I looked last night and there is one, heh. Actually, there's a 10,000,000 pt. award as well. Fun stuff.

The mission experience is great--and well it should be. Mission at very low levels are still spawning a considerable number of +1 enemies. I like this feature, but it can be inconveniant. My invul/EM tank has been effectively brickwalled by several missoins by red-con elemental/hold bosses. I also completed Dr. Vahz again last night with my katana/regen scrapper. Massive xp from the good doctor, the mission reward, then the DO (of your choice) and xp from my contact. VERY nice (good fight, too).

There's still plenty of issues to iron out in Issue2, but overall it's a rousing success. Now, they need to get the rest of the tanker fixes live and quickly!

[shiznitz]

The tutorial is now optional. If skipped, your hero appears in AP or GC (player choice) with zero exp in level 1. A nice option, although hunting at level 1 can be dangerous.

[kaid]

You can get badges for some funny stuff with some of the badges being quite amusing in their sarcasm. Such as the badge for duration of time spent held. I believe it reads something like Badge for showing a knack for standing around and doing nothing.

I got one for defeating a certain freakshow named the Pwnxxor so I have a title available to me that says PWN.  Can also get silly ones like gearsmasher which you get for wacking x number of clockwork gears after they poop out of bosses.

I messed around a bit with a baby katana user holy crap do the moves look better now. Very fast good damage and look slick. Fear the wrath of the south paw.

kaid

[SurfD]

Hehe, anyone been to the Paragon Dance Party?

Not sure if that tweaked Warehouse tileset is showing up anywhere else (particularly in any mission involving a club) but there is a zone, connecting to Indy Port, Steel C, and Talos (i Believe), that is a warehouse, with funky lights, strobes, and a general "Rave" look to the place and music pumping out all over inside.

Pretty fun actually.

I only know of one entrance, which is the door on the small building near the power transformer station directly along the base of Terra Volta to the east side, in Indy Port.

[eldaec]

Talos entrance is the theatre next door to Future Dynamics (Nat shop).

[Fabricated]

I pulled up my level 10 Invincibility/Super Strength Tanker on Victory, and wow, there's a whole lot of people playing now.

I hadn't played for a couple weeks, and my memory is that of an crack addict, but I don't remember there being a low level trial zone right outside Atlas Park. I got a mission there (the hollows), and slogged headfirst into a gigantic parade of level 7 outcasts.

It almost felt like I loaded up someone else's character. I was able to attack about 3-4 times as much as I used to before running out of endurance, and it seemed to be I took a lot less damage. The new power-sporting outcast minions were in full force too.

It was actually a hell of a lot of fun. Since there were a hojillion players of all levels hanging around the entrance, I'd get healed and a bunch of random buffs just going back to my contact.

[SurfD]

yep, hollows is one of the five or so new zones that they added in.  I believe hollows is the only low level one, the others are 40+ stuff.

[ClydeJr]

One of the new zones is Fire Base Zulu. Gee, wasn't there a movie and TV series about this?

I was Sked up to level 38 and did a mission through this portal. We went to another dimension where the Circle of Thorns are actually good guys and we're trying to rescue them from the Malta Group.

The new tilesets are real nice. The standard ones change depending on what enemy you are fighting. We had a mission where we had to defeat Frostfire, leader of the Outcasts. The mission was in an office building so it used the same layouts. However, there was ice everywhere: on the floor (step on it and you start sliding), on the walls, even on the stairs. Two sets of ice covered stairs facing each other made a great half-pipe.

[Sky]

/auction ZPM for sale!! PST!!! WTB DHD!

I can't wait to re-up to CoH, such a fun game.

[Mesozoic]

Hey, the game is supposed to be campy and derivative.

I did the cape mission last night.  Lots of running around, followed by a tough door mish in Hollows.  Very much worth it tho, the capes look great.  

The first time I ran through the door mission was actually to help out a blaster; we died once b/c my "teammate" didn't bother to check my health levels before a fight.  Other than that the mobs were doable.  I did notice that some nasty bosses spawn when you bring two or more people in....there were no bosses at all when I ran the mission later, solo.

[Mesozoic]

Amusing cape parody.

I guess not everyone is happy about cape-as-prestige-item.