The News Thread

[Alkiera]

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

[Llava]

Ah, good call.  Forgot about that one.

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

[ClydeJr]

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

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.

[Llava]

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

[ClydeJr]

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:

We are looking for ideas for new Mastermind powersets, and want one common thread for people to post them in.

Some of the obvious ones are Pirates, Thugs (thugs are currently being worked on), and apparently Clowns are high on -someone's- list.

Henchmen based on humanoid skeletons (so they animate like the other characters in the game) are much much more likely to make it in the game, moreso than things like "dogs" or "elephants". Those require completely new animation.

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

[kaid]

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

[stray]

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".

[Llava]

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.

[stray]

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.

[Llava]

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.

[Typhon]

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.

[HaemishM]

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

[stray]

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.

[Llava]

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.

[kaid]

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

[Xanthippe]

I want toddlers for minions.

Ma Barker with younger kids.

[Llava]

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.

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

[kaid]

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

[Llava]

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.

[kaid]

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

[Nevermore]

Interesting.  They're going to put in personal 'housing' after all.

We have plans for personal bases (aka Hideouts or Player Apartments) to come in the near future. These won't be PvP playable maps, so there shouldn't be as many restrictions on what you can place where.

[Llava]

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.

[Nevermore]

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.

[Llava]

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

[Nevermore]

Statesman Q and A

[Llava]

<Manticore> Yes. The 5th Column will be back, led by the butt kicking Reichsman. It will not be a kinder gentler Column, in fact it will be the harshest most brutal version of the group you have ever seen.
<Manticore> How do you like them apples?

Wooooooo!

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

[schild]

The 5th Column is back? Neatoooooo.

[Signe]

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!

[Llava]

The 5th Column is back? Neatoooooo.

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

[Llava]

Pohsyb once more demonstrates that he lurks here (not to say that we have a monopoly on this latest net trend, but still)

[Venkman]

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!

[Shockeye]

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

[schild]

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

* schild sneers.

[Nebu]

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

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

[Llava]

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.