Issue 8 is Live

[Lantyssa]

You four ring people are all crazy. Except Signe - who is covered under 'eccentric' or possibly 'zany'.

I enjoy hanging out at f13, including the Politics board.  I think it is a given.

[Bandit]

So I don't see much in this thread about Issue 8 itself.  Seems silly to wait for 3+ months for an update to add police scanner missions to CoH, which is a duplicate mechanic form the CoV paper missions.  Plus throw in a few costume options that not everyone can use.  No one has send too much about the zone revamp either.  Like I have said in the past, I love this game, but it never really seems to change all that much.

[geldonyetich]

Issue 8 is a pretty tame revision, even though it does pretty much change the way the hero side plays out since we're no longer hitting up contacts as much.  Faultline is a nice new zone, but so is Croatoa,  Stirga Isle, Peregrine Isle, ect.

So far as change is concerned, I think that Cryptic has done a pretty good job.  I mean, read all that.  About the only MMORPG that added more free content and gameplay additions since release was EverQuest 2.  Unfortunately, most of what they've added seems to be easily overlooked.

[Damn Dirty Ape]

police scanner missions to CoH

costume options

zone revamp

Looks like a pretty decent issue to me.  Now get back to counting the frikkin' rings!

[Furiously]

Looks like a pretty decent issue to me.  Now get back to counting the frikkin' rings!

Four.

[Damn Dirty Ape]

Four.

[Baldrick] And that one. [/Baldrick]

[Furiously]

I think someone swapped pictures - five.

[geldonyetich]

I think I see the problem.  2 and 3 are overlapping in such a way that they look like the same ring, linked on the right side.

I knew Cryptic must have put 5 rings in there because it wouldn't be that much harder to do than 4 rings, but that picture does only have four rings if we're following standard laws of physics and the rings can't pass through eachother.

[Damn Dirty Ape]

We need Reed Richards to help us understand the physics involved here.

[Furiously]

I'd prefer Sue.

[Stormwaltz]

About the only MMORPG that added more free content and gameplay additions since release was EverQuest 2.  Unfortunately, most of what they've added seems to be easily overlooked.

Not as easily overlooked as seven years of monthly to quarterly free content in AC1, it seems. :P

[hal]

Did I hear a "Zing"

[geldonyetich]

I was referring to current generation MMORPGs, or else I'd probably have mentioned the original EverQuest and their 9+ expansion packs.

[geldonyetich]

their 9+ expansion packs.

Not that those were free, of course.  Asheron's Call did release a lot of nice free content.  I like how they blew up one of their core cities.

[Damn Dirty Ape]

I'd prefer Sue.

Knowing my luck, we'd get Michael Richards.

CoX has come a long way since its humble beginning.  I dusted off my level 50 tanker last night, fiddled with a costume, and then took him to Recluse's Victory for some PvP.  Villains had a clear majority presence in the zone.  At one point, I had three brutes on me but unstoppable allowed me to fend them off for awhile then run away.  I encountered one of the brutes, a stone/electric, later in a one-on-one match that lasted about five minutes before I finally drove him into the ground.  That was alot of fun and the first time I got to see the electric defense set in action.

Aside from a desire for greater environment interaction and a reduced grind, I'm durned pleased with CoX's progress.  I started a month after release, taking a nine-month break earlier this year to try WoW.  I came back after receiving an e-mail advertising work on issue eight.  The image of winged characters reminded me that CoX has the strongest character customization of any game I've ever played.  Being a roleplayah at heart, that means far more than phat lewtz to me.  You can have any character origin and look you like in CoX and still not break game fiction.

I'll stick with the game for awhile more and see what else unfolds.  Maybe they'll finally introduce Hostess snacks advertisement missions.  I can dream, can't I?

[Numtini]

Thanks to human behavior 2 and an insane reading load, I'm barely playing, but sunday mornings are our SG's official get together time and I finally got in on one of the new hero missions.

It was fun. It was a lot of fun. It seemed far more chaotic than the mayhem missions on the villain side. I think that was because chaos is the aim villainside and here, I just couldn't think of what to stop first. It seemed to have a lot more options. We kept hitting different vandal groups and villains and getting door submissions up until time ran out. I had a ball.

The thing I really wish for is for that to be in an actual city instead of in a mission zone. Combining these with a MMP PVP zone would be a load of fun. Even if it were done with a sort of battlegrounds setup.

[eldaec]

Has mission reward xp been increased lately? It seems to be much higher than I remember it?

Also, as others have said, I'm finding safeguard missions much more fun than advertised on the official forums etc, and more fun than the mayhem equivalent - though also much easier than mayhem missions. I don't think I've ever failed one so long as the group has understod the incredibly complex 'go directly to the bank' instruction (so about a 70% success rate so far). Tricky business.

[Numtini]

The safeguard mission clearly isn't about the bank, it's about what you do with the rest of your time. I never even got into the bank by the time they nailed it. (Teleport kept bouncing me into the glowy walls.)

[eldaec]

The rest of it is what makes it fun.

But the bank based organisational test - ie. will this PuG understand the instruction 'go to teh bank', is what stops you getting kicked out after about 2 minutes.

It's a very appropriate test, since once you get going, the mission is only fun if your group can deal with the idea that they have to travel to vandal/side-mission star every time it pops. If your PuG can't get to the bank you might as well get kicked out, since the rest of the mission won't be much fun in that case.

[Furiously]

Did it in a 6 man group - they throw some insane amout of enemies at you.

[hal]

Ya, having done villain and now hero. It took about 3 tries for me to figure out what is going on. Watch the map and respond. It is really fun, i enjoy mayhem but the hero's got the best serving.

[UnSub]

It's interesting, but a lot of hero players are complaining about the difficulty of the safeguard missions. It's not the "stop the bank robbery" bit that is hard, it's all the rest of it. This is because the current AI settings see the street mobs aggro from a lot further away, meaning you can't (as you can in missions) ignore the street mobs and hit the objectives. The mobs won't let you.

Solo you might be able to avoid mob attention through your normal tactics, but due to the number of mobs spawned by teams (and the fact that each player has a chance to draw aggro onto the rest of the team) you end have having to fight a lot more battles. This makes these missions a bit more interesting to me. I don't know if I like it yet or not (especially since PUG team wipes = end of team) but it certainly adds a breathless component to doing the safeguards.

On the other hand, death means little, since every safeguard map has its own "hospital". You die, you click the button and reappear, ready for the short trip back into the action.

Right now, I think that post-bank your team has to take a turtle attitude - stay close, take out the mobs who attack you and move with care towards the vandal hotspot. I'm going to test this theory in later safeguard sessions.

[geldonyetich]

Lazy players.  If the street mobs get in the way, defeat them.  I can't tell you how many parties I've had absolutely blow up because everybody wants to rush straight to the carrot.

[Hutch]

Lazy players.  If the street mobs get in the way, defeat them.  I can't tell you how many parties I've had absolutely blow up because everybody wants to rush straight to the carrot.

In the safeguard missions, if you don't go straight to the carrot, the carrot will rob the bank and head for the exit. Good luck stopping him, if you're stopping to fight the street mobs along the way.

[geldonyetich]

Yeah, but that wasn't the issue.

It's interesting, but a lot of hero players are complaining about the difficulty of the safeguard missions. It's not the "stop the bank robbery" bit that is hard, it's all the rest of it. This is because the current AI settings see the street mobs aggro from a lot further away, meaning you can't (as you can in missions) ignore the street mobs and hit the objectives. The mobs won't let you.

[eldaec]

Ya, having done villain and now hero. It took about 3 tries for me to figure out what is going on. Watch the map and respond. It is really fun, i enjoy mayhem but the hero's got the best serving.

This is the key, I think the people who find it hard are the people who don't play with a map in the corner at all times, or who just don't understand how the map works.

On the villian side I refuse to admit I'm even eligible to pick up a mayhem mission unless I have a group of 4 or less, and everyone seems competant; on the hero side I'm comfortable just shouting at people coaching my respected fellow heroes who don't figure it out immeadiately.

[Glazius]

You have 5 minutes to get to the bank before the villain starts in on the vault. Most of the missions drop you pretty close to the bank to begin with so you only have to deal with a few groups of street mobs to get there.

The trick is setting your overall difficulty down (onoes teh cardinal sin!) so that your team can steamroll a single street spawn instead of having to take it slowly and carefully.

--GF

[Damn Dirty Ape]

I was just running police missions solo in Brickstown with Solar Titan, my 33rd level fire/fire tanker.  I had difficulty set on tenacious so I could get bosses at the end.

When I got the safeguard mission, the bank robber turned out to be Giga Watt with his nasty endurance drain punches and a seemingly-everlasting power that reduced my damage to single digits when I got him to 1/4 health.   He was regenerating faster than I could damage at that point.  I died three times (I finally get to use Rise of the Phoenix!  Yay!) as the new-fangled Healing Flames only works when you have endurance.

Despite my best effort, Giga Watt made his getaway and I got a nice amount of debt.  How embarrassing.

[UnSub]

I should add that some reports of wackiness in safeguard missions have been reported - like robbers teleporting / spawning at the front door after the vault has cracked and escaping with the cash.

However, if you are willing to turn the difficulty down AND spend 5 minutes organising your team for what is going to happen when they enter the safeguard, it isn't that hard to successfully complete.

It's been my recent experience that doing any mission with a team that is set on Heroic difficulty (ie the easiest) draws out complaints, however.

[Trippy]

Can you solo a Safeguard mission at Heroic?

[geldonyetich]

Depends on your archetype, specific powers, level, and skill.

My Blaster had no difficulty soloing safeguard missions on heroic at 8-12.  I had some closer calls but pulled through okay.

A Defender or Controller could probably solo them okay pre-20, but by the time they reach 20 their damage output would have fell enough that they'd probably have a hard time getting where they need to be in time.

A Tank may or may not have the same problem as a Defender or Controller in this regard.

Scrappers can solo anything.

Specific powers can this rule of thumb a bit, and player skill does matter to some extent.

[Trippy]

I'm an Illusion/Kinetics Controller -- the more mobs around me the merrier.

[UnSub]

Can you solo a Safeguard mission at Heroic?

Maybe.

It depends if you run into 1) an Elite Boss you can't kill solo, or 2) a map full of spawns who aggro from too far away and stop you from getting into the bank. Complaints have been long and loud about Nemesis (who do knockback damage) and Malta (who immobilise / stun) who keep heroes locked down long enough for the villains to get away.

I believe if you have flight or can keep to the rooftops, you should at least be able to get past the street spawns and into the bank.

[Trippy]

Do the street mobs automatically see through stealth/invis like ambush spawns? If not I can presumably get past with some combination of Superior Invisibility, Super Speed, and Inertial Reduction. And Sappers are an Illusion Controller's best friends :-D

[Hutch]

I believe if you have flight or can keep to the rooftops, you should at least be able to get past the street spawns and into the bank.

I haven't tried rooftop travel yet in a Safeguard mission, but in the Mayhem mission for Peregrine (and maybe FF too), there were Longbow Eagles who would pop in and pursue you, if you flew too close to the top of the bank.

I don't know if there were similar threats awaiting in lower-level mayhems, and I don't know if they're in Safeguards at all. But it's worth bearing in mind