Wanted! City of Heroes Players!

[Sailboat]

Try again, they claim to have fixed it (http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?p=3884316#post3884316).

OK, that worked, although not at first. At first it didn't "stick" and I had to log a character back into the game for a few seconds before it would allow me to log back into the forums. I PMed a redname and was told "it might take over 15 minutes to propagate" to all the places it need to propagate. So I stopped worrying about it, and it seems to be working today. Finally, after 6 days of being mute. :)

[mlees]

I'll look for that. It must be tiny for me to have not seen it. Or if I saw it I assumed it was for scrolling.


Thanks! Looks like I won't be able to visit for a few more levels (though I was mainly wanting to log out there for the relevant "day job" credits).




There's no real need to wait. :)

You can take the tram to the next zone right away. When you leave the tram station in the next zone, go clockwise (to the right) around the station, and behind it (and across the street) to the south-southeast is the tailor. There should be no mobs to worry about. The tailor is a female NPC.

The vault/bank is to the west, down the street (a short city block), also safe to approach, on the south side of the street (same side as the tailor).

The auction house is across the street to the west from the bank. (And up a set of stairs.) There are occasionaly some level 10-12 mobs hanging out in the mouth of the alley to the north of the auction house (to the right as you face the auction house), but I never had any problems avoiding those chumps.

[Bosstone]

It is; Vanguard (http://wiki.cohtitan.com/w/images//5/53/Talsorian_Sword_Final.jpg) Blades (http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/File:Dualvanguardkatana.jpg). But since you were apparently away for a while you missed out on the Loyalty Award program a while back that made them available to all your characters; so you'll need to wait till 35 to unlock them. Or make a Fire Melee character for an approximation I suppose.You should actually be able to purchase the blades in the store, too, as well as the entire Vanguard pack, if you're willing to spend extra money.

[smiling bandit]

Intial notes:

The costume creator is nice but painfully limited in some areas. It has about 900 different weird varieties of tech armor, and 500 varities of formalwear, but rather limited as far as smooth coats or jackets. Pants are similarly weak. I expected more from the game which later gave rise to Champions Online. Dammit, I wanted my character in some shorts so as to show off his legs, but apparently the only "Shorts" available are valkyrie skirts for some reason. I was originally going for semi-human face ("Feline") and monstrous legs, but decided against that on the grounds that the monstrous legs looked meh. Way better than Champions Online, however, where they omstly made you look like a carnival show.

Combat seemed smooth, except I had terrible and constant lag. Eventually I digured out this was probably the downloader and not the game. Very poor detail even on "Ultra High", and not as good art design as WoW.

Ah well, I'm past the tutorial and onto Mercy Island. I will let it download everything before proceeding, so it's off to bed for me till the morrow.

[Sailboat]

it seems to be working today. Finally, after 6 days of being mute. :)

Okay, it's UN-working this morning -- cannot log into the COH forums again.

I can read posts, but I don't see any awareness that the problem is back...wish I could post at least once to say "Hey, I'm getting it again, anyone else getting it?" Sigh.

Dammit, I wanted my character in some shorts so as to show off his legs, but apparently the only "Shorts" available are valkyrie skirts for some reason.

There are definitely shorts available. Sometimes things are organized in ways that may baffle users, though -- but they should be in there somewhere.

[CandidGamera]

Well, I dropped DC Online yesterday, and I would have dropped City of Heroes had I been able to log into my account. They apparently added new security questions for computer verification that - having not set those up - I couldn't answer. Finally resolved the issue with their support team this morning.

[Mister Rik]

What exactly does it mean each time I log in a new character and the words "New Costume Part (Piece?)" flash across the screen? The wording implies a new slot, which I see I get at certain levels, but visiting the tailor doesn't seem to reveal any new slots that weren't there while I was creating the original costume.

It looks like I probably won't be making any "summoner"-type characters. Every time I get near another character who has their pets out — at least the "little flaming demon" type, which seems to be most of them that I've seen so far — my FPS drops into "unplayable" range. I have to ask: is loitering around Ms. Liberty with pets out the CoH equivalent of WoW's "mammoth on the mailbox"?

I'm starting to think it's a good idea to learn "Flight" as soon as Pool Powers are available.

[Lute Skywatcher]

What exactly does it mean each time I log in a new character and the words "New Costume Part (Piece?)" flash across the screen?That character just got access to a new costume part. Wings, for example.Every time I get near another character who has their pets out — at least the "little flaming demon" type, which seems to be most of them that I've seen so far — my FPS drops into "unplayable" range.Go into options and turn off the display for other players' effects.

[Lute Skywatcher]

It's very common to see anyone and everyone loitering near Ms. Liberty. Atlas Park, specifically under the Atlas statue, is the primary location for costume contests. I've seen some so big it that looks like the entire zone is there.

[Mister Rik]

That character just got access to a new costume part. Wings, for example.
Is there something that will tell me specifically what "new part" I got access to? Like I said, I visit the tailor and I'm not seeing anything I didn't already see during costume creation while making the character.


Go into options and turn off the display for other players' effects.
Cool, didn't know about that. Thanks :)

[Lute Skywatcher]

Is there something that will tell me specifically what "new part" I got access to? If it was a loot drop, it would be in your salvage and you need to craft it in order to get access. If you saw the message after entering the game but before any loot drops, it's a Veteran reward or whatever they're calling them now. I've not played since Freedom went live for VIPs so I don't know how to find those.Cool, didn't know about that. Thanks :)Quite welcome. I've been tempted to use that myself when visiting Wentworth's at times.

[Mister Rik]

If it was a loot drop, it would be in your salvage and you need to craft it in order to get access. If you saw the message after entering the game but before any loot drops, it's a Veteran reward or whatever they're calling them now. I've not played since Freedom went live for VIPs so I don't know how to find those.

Yeah, this is immediately upon entering the game for the first time after creating the character.

[Jophiel]

I think the only shorts (excepting tighty-whities from the Tights selection) are the boxing shorts. They can be recolored to whatever but they're a vet reward and not available for new players. I've never made a shorts-wearin' hero but I can see where it'd be frustrating for whoever else.

[Quimby]

Is there something that will tell me specifically what "new part" I got access to? Like I said, I visit the tailor and I'm not seeing anything I didn't already see during costume creation while making the character.


The chat window lists a bunch of messages when you log in, the specific costume piece you gained should be listed there.

It will also tell you any badges you may have earned if you got a new one.

[Mekhazzio]

There's some martial arts themed shorts available in that section, too, but the selection of normal clothing is really limited. You can get a million different patterns of spandex, as you'd expect for a superhero game, but "civilian wear" is limited.

My personal costume peeve is how few of the outfit pieces and patterns can go on animalistic body types. Digitigrade legs, in particular, lock out virtually everything for the lower body category...kinda disappointing. My minotaur lady can't wear the Roman legionnaire outfit without shapeshifting to normal legs :(

[Mister Rik]

Are all these costume set slots that are labeled "Earn in Game" or "Buy in Store" basically for different costumes that I can change into "at will"? I'm thinking those are good for putting together a "secret identity" outfit.

I'm having a great time with my Fire Blast/Fire Manipulation heroine, Flaminatrix! I had her learn to fly, and being able to blast the bad guys while hovering is a lot of fun. She just finished up the pre-level-10 Shining Stars storyline, up through Manticore (don't want to spoil it for any who haven't done it yet). Of course, having both Flaminatrix and Flambeaux on the same team is kind of redundant...

I'm still having trouble with moving forward — I'm so accustomed to moving in WoW by holding down both mouse buttons, and I've gotten in trouble with that in CoH because of how, if you hold both buttons down for a few seconds, you just keep moving even after releasing the buttons. In one instance I unintentionally ran my character right into a tight corner and was promptly surrounded by villains so that I couldn't move out of the corner.

[Bosstone]

I'm having a great time with my Fire Blast/Fire Manipulation heroine, Flaminatrix![veteran forumgoer pet peeve]Gosh, and here I thought all the names had been taken already and the inability to find a good one was going to drive new players away.[/vfpp]

I'm still having trouble with moving forward — I'm so accustomed to moving in WoW by holding down both mouse buttons, and I've gotten in trouble with that in CoH because of how, if you hold both buttons down for a few seconds, you just keep moving even after releasing the buttons. In one instance I unintentionally ran my character right into a tight corner and was promptly surrounded by villains so that I couldn't move out of the corner.Yeah, that trips me up sometimes too. It took a while before I realized that was an intentional feature and not an irritating bug. It can be handy if you have a long way to run, but given the abundance of travel abilities in the game travel doesn't account for much downtime.

[Der Trihs]

Are all these costume set slots that are labeled "Earn in Game" or "Buy in Store" basically for different costumes that I can change into "at will"? I'm thinking those are good for putting together a "secret identity" outfit.Yes, complete with "costume change emotes" like spinning Wonder Woman style, or drinking a potion. You can get new costume slots (http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Halloween_Costume_Slot#Extra_Costume_Slots) at tailors at level 20, 30, and 40; and a fourth is available by turning in special Halloween Salvage pieces to Granny Beldam in Nerva for villains (on an island north of the Natural store; a supergroup teleporter will drop you right there); Annah in Croatoa for heroes right by the Tram, off the edge of the platform; and Praetorians can turn the salvage in at Acantha in Imperial City on the hills near the Tiberian Bluff marker to the south.

I'm still having trouble with moving forward — I'm so accustomed to moving in WoW by holding down both mouse buttons, and I've gotten in trouble with that in CoH because of how, if you hold both buttons down for a few seconds, you just keep moving even after releasing the buttons. In one instance I unintentionally ran my character right into a tight corner and was promptly surrounded by villains so that I couldn't move out of the corner.I just use the WASD keys; in fact, it was CoX that got me used to using them.

[Ike Witt]

[veteran forumgoer pet peeve]Gosh, and here I thought all the names had been taken already and the inability to find a good one was going to drive new players away.[/vfpp]
Lol. This is how I came up with the name Ike Witt. I was trying to come up with a name for a character of mine in Guild Wars. I tried about 15 different names that were all taken, when I said "I quit". Needless to say, a light went on and I've been using the name on-line for about 5 years now.

[Quimby]

[veteran forumgoer pet peeve]Gosh, and here I thought all the names had been taken already and the inability to find a good one was going to drive new players away.[/vfpp]


That was probably the best part of them creating a brand new server. I got some names I long wanted to use that had been taken on all the other servers literally years ago.

[Mister Rik]

[veteran forumgoer pet peeve]Gosh, and here I thought all the names had been taken already and the inability to find a good one was going to drive new players away.[/vfpp]
Hah! I can't remember how many other names I tried before that one stuck. Naturally, she's dressed in bright red and orange leather :p

Oh, and I got her to level 10. Went 8-10 by doing one of the stories at Architect Entertainment called "Relativity Be Damned!" Very well done, and very fun. Alternate universe Einsteins!

Oh yeah, that reminds me that I'm supposed to check back in with Twinshot at level 10...

[Mister Rik]

Yes, complete with "costume change emotes" like spinning Wonder Woman style, or drinking a potion.
Coolness. I'm thinking she'll need a "civilian" outfit and an armored version of her regular costume...

[smiling bandit]

Having some fun, though I'm starting to get my butt kicked. Enemies definitely getting harder around level 8-9. I need more "punch" to my powers, though I did just get Flame Breath.

My Villain on Protecter is a Fire/Dark Corrupter named "Jaggy". It irritated me greatly that I ran into the old naming problem and had to drop my preferred names. I'm also thinking that I might have been better off with Ice/Kinetics. Hard to say. I may try to make another just to experiment, and I'm not too high a level yet. My reasoning is that while I like Fire, I don't get that much out of AoE, at least not yet. I'm a focus-fire kind of guy, and the fact that the ordinary mooks on Mercy island ALWAYS pair with a liutenant.

*I had in mind that he got his powers from a particularly unpleasant Aztec God, and is not happy about it. Unfortunately, he never read in the comics where the heroes inevitably get into a pointless brawl the first time they meet, so my personal story is that he was rescued by opportunistic Arachnos agents after thinking the good guys were out to get *HIM*. May go Rogue later on.

Definitely enjoyed the use of variable endings to my missions.

Thus far: Fire Wire, you == idiot == TRUE. Note to Self: don't use the piles of cash as a memento(!). Note to Arachnos: As much as I enjoy your sloppiness, there's no reason to stop trying to get me after the bank job.

Lt. Harris: Yes, you're an idiot. I actually felt bad about abusing you, but only because you really belonged in a mental hospital, you raving psycho.

Dr. Graves: You are pretty much the poster child for why I prefer my villains genial.

I'm actually wondering about some things. I often see nice vs. monstrous choices in missions. Some of them seem to matter, and some don't. I love this feature, but is there a guide anywhere to what choices make a difference? I like leaving people alive because I like having more people around. Also, if I get introduced to one contact, can I still find the other and do his missions?

[Lok]

Now, question... I've been away for a while, and I started building a new character. I remember before that I could edit the colors of my powers. It's looking like I can't do that anymore. There's a power edit screen, but it only seems to allow 'light' and 'dark', no color changes. Am I missing something? I'm hoping that didn't get removed from the game.


Looks that way. Demon Summoning isn't listed here (http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Bright_Power_Colors) or here (http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Dark_Power_Colors).

You can't customize any of the MM pets in any way. Requested a lot, but hasn't happened. But you can customize the other powerset you chose.


Well, I've already rolled up a crapton of different characters with different archetypes and power sets. I kind of like to do that in these games, and just play each one a bit here and there and see which ones "stick" and which ones don't. So far I'm having the most fun with my "blasters", in particular Green Shriek, my mutation/sonic attack/mental manipulation character, and Chill Kill, my magic/archery/ice manipulation character.

One of the first characters I rolled, Missterra, has perhaps a "less than ideal" power set. She's a controller — earth control/kinetic, without much in the way of offensive capabilities. But it's fun and challenging trying to beat the encounters using the tools she has available to her. Plus I figure that not every mutant is blessed with a perfect combination of powers.

Another sad victim of Altitis. You will find a lot of fellow sufferers in the game. I have a mild case myself, only 60+ different characters right now. I am currently fighting the desire for a Time Manipulation character. I think I am losing.

Intial notes:

The costume creator is nice but painfully limited in some areas. It has about 900 different weird varieties of tech armor, and 500 varities of formalwear, but rather limited as far as smooth coats or jackets. Pants are similarly weak. I expected more from the game which later gave rise to Champions Online. Dammit, I wanted my character in some shorts so as to show off his legs, but apparently the only "Shorts" available are valkyrie skirts for some reason. I was originally going for semi-human face ("Feline") and monstrous legs, but decided against that on the grounds that the monstrous legs looked meh. Way better than Champions Online, however, where they omstly made you look like a carnival show.

Combat seemed smooth, except I had terrible and constant lag. Eventually I digured out this was probably the downloader and not the game. Very poor detail even on "Ultra High", and not as good art design as WoW.


The biggest complaint about the costume options over the last 7 years has been the inequality between the genders. Women get more options in shorts and skirts, but less in other areas like armor. Men basically get kilts, but more options in armor and suits. They both have had basically the same number of costume parts, but not the same parts. And both sides agree the options for the monstrous legs really suck. :( It is hoped that with less necessity to create entire theme of parts with Freedom, that the artists will now be able to make up some of those inequities.

On the downloader, it has a known memory leak. Unless you want to run 2 sessions of COH at once, go to File>Settings>General and uncheck the 2 boxes and set the dropdown menu to Exit Launcher.

The zone graphics in the game vary wildly. Actually all the graphics do. The original Paragon zones are very old and dated, the Rogue Island stuff is newer, and the Praetoria stuff is much newer. The tutorial and Atlas Park are of of course brand new, although I guess the stuff in AP is mixed, some new, some still old. As someone who can't run Ultra Mode (I'm lucky I can still run the game. :p) I can't see most of the differences. Although there are some see through buildings in First Ward I am pretty sure are supposed to be solid. :D

Is there something that will tell me specifically what "new part" I got access to? Like I said, I visit the tailor and I'm not seeing anything I didn't already see during costume creation while making the character.


The parts you get show up on the yellow Rewards channel. I have it, the System channel, the Error channel, and the various channels announcing zone events in a separate window so I can keep track of the more easily. I also have the various global channels I am on in a separate window, on different tabs, for the same reason. Then there is a window with a tab for teams/leagues/SG and a tab for the combat messages. It makes my UI a bit more cluttered, but keeps my communications sorted out.

It used to be a real pain to set up on new characters, but they added the ability to save your windows and chat channel setups to the Options at the bottom of the General tab. Now I just have to go there and load the default windows file, the default chat file, and the default Options file. Voila, everything set. You have to watch the system channel to be sure they load, sometimes you have to push the button a couple of times. But still much faster than doing it all by hand.

[Lok]

Having some fun, though I'm starting to get my butt kicked. Enemies definitely getting harder around level 8-9. I need more "punch" to my powers, though I did just get Flame Breath.

The joys of only having TOs and not enough of them. When you start getting DOs and the occasional IO in your build, things start improving. SOs really help things out.


I'm actually wondering about some things. I often see nice vs. monstrous choices in missions. Some of them seem to matter, and some don't. I love this feature, but is there a guide anywhere to what choices make a difference? I like leaving people alive because I like having more people around. Also, if I get introduced to one contact, can I still find the other and do his missions?

You can check Paragonwiki (http://paragonwiki.com/index.php?title=Main_Page). For the arcs, like Dr. Graves, they generally have the complete arc text and what happens in it. The brand new stuff may not be finished yet, since it is all done by players. OTOH, the open Beta gave a lot of time for getting it done.

And no, you can't just go to a contact and start doing their missions. In some cases you will later be introduced to the other contact (That is especially true in the higher zones blueside.) but some you can only do by choosing differently with another character. Or possibly by using Ouroboros. Haven't tried that yet.

[smiling bandit]

The joys of only having TOs and not enough of them. When you start getting DOs and the occasional IO in your build, things start improving. SOs really help things out.

Thanks for the tip... but what does any of this mean?

[Bosstone]

Thanks for the tip... but what does any of this mean? These refer to enhancements, the circular icons you can slot in your powers.

TO = Training Origin Enhancement. Really basic. Only improves your powers by 6-9% per enhancement.
DO = Dual Origin Enhancement. So named because a particular enhancement can only be slotted by one of two origins (Magic/Natural, Tech/Science, etc). Improves powers by 12-19% per enhancement.
SO = Single Origin. You can only slot the enhancements of your origin. Improves powers by 23-38% per enhancement.

As you can see, they make a huge difference. 3 TOs gets you ~28% improvement at best, 3 DOs get you ~60%, and 3 SOs get you ~100%, and that's only if you use three slots for a single attribute (damage, recharge, endurance reduction, etc). Also, by the time you hit 22 (which is when you get SOs), you'll have accumulated a decent number of enhancement slots, which directly translates to more/varied power.

TOs, DOs, and SOs are level-relative. Each has a given level, and their power is dependent on yours, with a range of +3 to -3. If you have a level 18 DO and you're level 15, it will give you a very high boost, but that boost will degrade to its lowest point until you're level 21, and it'll shut off entirely at level 22.

IOs are slightly different. They're Invention Origin enhancements and are crafted by players. They do not vary in power, but they also don't ever degrade or shut off. They're meant more for moderate-advanced players, but they're very helpful once you start getting comfortable with the system.

[smiling bandit]

Aha. Thank you kindly. I got to play around slightly with the combining system, and I have picked up salvage. I have no idea how to use the salvage, though.

Also, got to say I absolutely love the superspeed. I would usualyl gof or flight, but superspeed seems to do most of what I need and is great fun. Sometimes hard to control.

[mlees]

Aha. Thank you kindly. I got to play around slightly with the combining system, and I have picked up salvage. I have no idea how to use the salvage, though.

Also, got to say I absolutely love the superspeed. I would usualyl gof or flight, but superspeed seems to do most of what I need and is great fun. Sometimes hard to control.

Around level 10, you will get a contact pop up to tell you to go to the university in Steel Canyon [south] (for heroes). Doing a ten minute tutorial walk through opens up the "crafting" system, which is what that salvage is for.

I usually wait until level 12, in order to get a free level 15 crafted enhancement.

You can aution salvage, recipes, and unused enhancements at the auction house. It comes with a nice feature that lets you see what the last 5 winning bids for the stuff was.

[Maus Magill]

Everything you need to know about enhancements in a nutshell (Not including IOs)

1 SO = 2 DOs = 4 TOs.

You cannot slot more than the equivalent of 3 SOs per power.

Don't spend inf on TOs. Just use the ones that drop.

[Bosstone]

Don't spend inf on TOs. Just use the ones that drop.Word. The first few levels go by so quickly and TOs do so little that it's not worth spending your inf. You're going to want that inf as auction seed money or at the very least just to save for DOs or SOs.

[Mekhazzio]

If you're new to COH, playing a fire/dark corrupter and having survival trouble at low levels, don't fall into the common newbie trap of misunderstanding Dark Miasma. While most MMOs revolve around the tank + healer + DPS mindset, COH pays them little attention, especially on the villain side, and Dark Miasma is one of the best examples of it. New players frequently fixate on its first power (the heal) as its primary defense, when that's a distant third to its main thrusts of debuffing and control. The centerpiece of the set is Darkest Night, an area of effect toggle ability that massively reduces the damage output of all enemies inside it. Get it as early as you possibly can, and keep an eye out for other hit debuffs or defense buffs to couple with it, as those multiply each other's effectiveness. Dark Miasma is one of the strongest defense powersets in the game and is right up there in potency with many tanker powersets in its ability to reach near invulnerability. Survival trouble is something for other people to deal with :D

[Lok]

Thanks for the tip... but what does any of this mean?

Sorry about that. I spend too much time on the CoH forum. :o

[smiling bandit]

If you're new to COH, playing a fire/dark corrupter and having survival trouble at low levels, don't fall into the common newbie trap of misunderstanding Dark Miasma.

[snip]

Dark Miasma is one of the strongest defense powersets in the game and is right up there in potency with many tanker powersets in its ability to reach near invulnerability. Survival trouble is something for other people to deal with :D

Oh heck, I didn't know that. Darkest Night looked kinda weak at first glance, so I picked up another attack so as not to rely on Brawl and Charm so much. I kinda had that idea, but I really guess I don't know which powers are good, even after looking at the wiki and boards. I may try an Earth/Willpower Brute Villain/Rogue since that appears to be harder to screw up.

[Quimby]

FYI Expired accounts are being reactivated over the next few days and the free to play accounts start next week. Info here (http://na.cityofheroes.com/en/news/news_archive/do_you_remember_your_first.php).

[Mister Rik]

Another sad victim of Altitis. You will find a lot of fellow sufferers in the game.
Indeed. Hello, my name is Rik, and I'm an altoholic. (Hi Rik!) It would appear the game designers encourage this, since I see I can have, what, four dozen characters per server? But like I said, I make a bunch and see which ones grow on me. I've already deleted a couple that were just making me say "meh". I've got something like 43 different WoW toons, but only 3 of them see any regular play.

The zone graphics in the game vary wildly. Actually all the graphics do. The original Paragon zones are very old and dated, the Rogue Island stuff is newer, and the Praetoria stuff is much newer. The tutorial and Atlas Park are of of course brand new, although I guess the stuff in AP is mixed, some new, some still old. As someone who can't run Ultra Mode (I'm lucky I can still run the game. :p) I can't see most of the differences. Although there are some see through buildings in First Ward I am pretty sure are supposed to be solid. :D
I'm running with my graphics slider set to "Performance" (one notch above minimum), and that seems to be working pretty good. Though I was doing the last bit of the quest mission chain involving Matt Habashy where I had to enter an Arachnos facility, and simply walking into that place was an instant lag bomb that I could only fix by moving the slider to the lowest setting. That was weird, though, because I also rolled a villain in Going Rogue who had to enter a very similar Arachnos facility in one of the early missions, and I didn't have the lag problem there.

It used to be a real pain to set up on new characters, but they added the ability to save your windows and chat channel setups to the Options at the bottom of the General tab. Now I just have to go there and load the default windows file, the default chat file, and the default Options file. Voila, everything set. You have to watch the system channel to be sure they load, sometimes you have to push the button a couple of times. But still much faster than doing it all by hand.
I actually tried doing that, but clicking the Save button didn't seem to do anything at all. My main thing is that after the first few new characters, I decided I didn't need all those damned popup alerts any more so I was trying to turn them all off globally.

Also, got to say I absolutely love the superspeed. I would usualyl gof or flight, but superspeed seems to do most of what I need and is great fun. Sometimes hard to control.
I'm going with flight on my toons. As I mentioned in an earlier post, yeah, superspeed is hard to control. Of course, the main reason I'm going for flight is that I'm kind of having trouble finding my way around the streets, partly due to the relative lack of distinctive landmarks that can be easily seen from street level, and partly because I'm having trouble figuring out what, exactly, is a street when looking at the map. I'm thinking a plain street map would be better suited to this game than the current sorta-topographical thing it's got.


So ... a couple minor annoyances:

• Is it "normal" that the various "hold" abilities (Ice Manipulation's "Chilblains", Fire Manipulation's "Ring of Fire", etc.) consistently "miss" enemies that are a mere 1 level higher than the character? My level 8 Archer/Ice Manipulation hero got into a mission where most groups of three enemies had two level 8 mooks and one level 9 guy, and her Chilblains just Would. Not. Stick. to the level 9 guys.

• Flaminatrix joined a SuperGroup, and the group requests that everybody stay in SG mode so that the team gets whatever bonuses that gives. Problem is, turning on SG mode causes the team emblem to get printed on my character's chest, overriding her chosen chest piece. Her spandex "undershirt" shows up, but the Barbarian Leather chest piece she wears over it vanishes, replaced by the team emblem. Is there a way to disable the team emblem thing while in SG mode? It wrecks the costume I carefully assembled.

[Mekhazzio]

• Is it "normal" that the various "hold" abilities (Ice Manipulation's "Chilblains", Fire Manipulation's "Ring of Fire", etc.) consistently "miss" enemies that are a mere 1 level higher than the character? My level 8 Archer/Ice Manipulation hero got into a mission where most groups of three enemies had two level 8 mooks and one level 9 guy, and her Chilblains just Would. Not. Stick. to the level 9 guys.This requires a general explanation of several things in COH. First, "Hold" is a different type of power, one that renders an enemy completely unable to act. The powers you listed are "immobilize" abilities, which simply make an enemy unable to move.

Second, the abilities you listed have the standard accuracy for powers, which isn't terribly high unless you enhance for it, which you should. Low level characters have a "beginner's luck" accuracy bonus that decreases as you level up, so all powers will begin to miss more if you don't use enhancements to counteract that. You'll see a miss as a distinct Miss! popup, assuming you have the combat popup text enabled. If you don't see that, or Deflect!, which is the target's defense dodging your attack, it's not an accuracy issue - the power is on the target and is conferring all its effects. Higher level enemies do have a higher miss rate, although a mere one level isn't that dramatic, and it affects all powers equally. This is also fairly unique in the category, as most control powers actually have higher than standard accuracy, unless they're area-effect controls, which usually have much lower than standard. Also, regardless of how high your accuracy is, all abilities always have a 5% chance to miss (or 5% to hit, on the opposite side of the spectrum). When it's an ability you're really counting on to save your bacon, you'll notice that miss a lot more than its frequency might justify :D

Third, it matters very much which level 9 mooks you're talking about. Those immobilize abilities are not a guaranteed immobilize, they simply apply a certain value of strength of immobilize. For most minions and lieutenants, it's enough to immediately take effect, but for any Boss grade enemy, or enemies which have specific protection to immobilize, it will take repeated applications before the immobilize goes into effect. Vahzilok zombies are a low-level example of an enemy that's difficult to stop: even though they're minions, they require boss-strength immobilize to be rooted. You will have to use the immobilize on them twice, and they'll still only actually be immobilized for the duration that the two effects are overlapping.

Fourth, not all immobilize abilities are equal. Chilblains, among its many other effects (it has a lot), has a snare as well as a root, and on the zombie example, even if the root doesn't take hold, the snare will still slow them down, as they don't have slow protection. Ring of Fire will just do some fire damage. Also, some abilities have greater strength than others. The controller version of Chilblains will affect the same zombie in a single application, because it's just plain stronger than the blaster version. I'm fairly sure all the first-tier Blaster roots are of equal strength in their immobilize, but the secondary effects vary wildly.

[Bosstone]

• Flaminatrix joined a SuperGroup, and the group requests that everybody stay in SG mode so that the team gets whatever bonuses that gives. Problem is, turning on SG mode causes the team emblem to get printed on my character's chest, overriding her chosen chest piece. Her spandex "undershirt" shows up, but the Barbarian Leather chest piece she wears over it vanishes, replaced by the team emblem. Is there a way to disable the team emblem thing while in SG mode? It wrecks the costume I carefully assembled.Yep. I can't remember what the button is named exactly, but in the SuperGroup window pane there's a button marked Settings or Edit or something. The first screen will be a bunch of stuff you can't edit unless you're given permissions, but the next screen will be a list of body parts, where you can elect to either use your costume's colors or your SG's, with the option to turn the emblem off. Whatever you choose is what will be displayed when you're in SG Mode, so you can opt to turn everything off and keep your costume as is.

This is honestly a pretty poor implementation, I think; since most SGs want you to leave SG Mode on, what most folks do is use one of their extra costume slots for an SG-specific costume for formal grouping with SG members.

[Mekhazzio]

Oh heck, I didn't know that. Darkest Night looked kinda weak at first glance, so I picked up another attack so as not to rely on Brawl and Charm so much. I kinda had that idea, but I really guess I don't know which powers are good, even after looking at the wiki and boards.Yeah, if there's one great failing of the game, it's that the combat mechanics are pretty complicated and they don't do much of a job at actually explaining them anywhere. The text power descriptions are pretty vague, and even though they actually show you the power numbers now, for powers like Darkest Night, that's not real helpful on its own. "-11% chance to hit" sounds pretty mediocre unless you also know that it's subtracted directly from an enemy's baseline 45% chance to hit and stacks additively with other hit debuffs and defense buffs.

The game is almost too complex for its own good. Someone familiar with what's going on under the hood can build disgustingly powerful characters that can trivially solo end-game team content, but on the flip side, someone coming in cold, or worse, with preconceptions from other MMOs, can wind up making an extremely weak character without even realizing it. The gap can be vast and yawning, and I just feel bad for everyone that tries to remake their WoW holy priest in COH only to find out 75+ hours later that they've made a fifth wheel for team play.

[Bosstone]

The gap can be vast and yawning, and I just feel bad for everyone that tries to remake their WoW holy priest in COH only to find out 75+ hours later that they've made a fifth wheel for team play.Still, at least it's possible to recover. I can see someone making an Empathy/Dark Blast Defender and only taking Empathy powers, then discovering how dumb that is. They could restart, but they can also respec and start taking Dark Blast powers.

The nice thing about City is that it's basically impossible to permanently lock a character out of offensive potential. Of course, if you decide you want different powersets or a different archetype, then you're boned, but that's generally true except in classless games.

[Der Trihs]

Oh heck, I didn't know that. Darkest Night looked kinda weak at first glance, so I picked up another attack so as not to rely on Brawl and Charm so much.
Actually I tend to do that early on myself. Early on with weaker enemies and weak enhancements Darkest Night is both overkill and a severe endurance hog (and you should be glad they made Stamina into an inherent instead of having to wait until 20 to get it). But later when you are fighting more serious enemies and can slot it properly for endurance reduction and -tohit it's a great power. Fearsome Stare at 20 it another great survival tool; best slotted with more -tohit than fear, despite the name. Also, don't be fooled by the fact that Howling Twilight is technically a resurrection power; it's enemy targeted, and serves well as a disorient, a slow, a tohit debuff, and a -regeneration power. I often forget that it is supposed to be for resurrecting people.

[Der Trihs]

Yep. I can't remember what the button is named exactly, but in the SuperGroup window pane there's a button marked Settings or Edit or something. Settings.

Still, at least it's possible to recover. I can see someone making an Empathy/Dark Blast Defender and only taking Empathy powers, then discovering how dumb that is. They could restart, but they can also respec and start taking Dark Blast powers.Or if they don't have a respec, use the second build feature at the trainer and give themselves a pseudo-respec.

[Mister Rik]

This requires a general explanation of several things in COH. First, "Hold" is a different type of power, one that renders an enemy completely unable to act. The powers you listed are "immobilize" abilities, which simply make an enemy unable to move.
Yeah, I couldn't remember off the top of my head which was which :)

Second, the abilities you listed have the standard accuracy for powers, which isn't terribly high unless you enhance for it, which you should. Low level characters have a "beginner's luck" accuracy bonus that decreases as you level up, so all powers will begin to miss more if you don't use enhancements to counteract that. You'll see a miss as a distinct Miss! popup, assuming you have the combat popup text enabled. If you don't see that, or Deflect!, which is the target's defense dodging your attack, it's not an accuracy issue - the power is on the target and is conferring all its effects. Higher level enemies do have a higher miss rate, although a mere one level isn't that dramatic, and it affects all powers equally. This is also fairly unique in the category, as most control powers actually have higher than standard accuracy, unless they're area-effect controls, which usually have much lower than standard. Also, regardless of how high your accuracy is, all abilities always have a 5% chance to miss (or 5% to hit, on the opposite side of the spectrum). When it's an ability you're really counting on to save your bacon, you'll notice that miss a lot more than its frequency might justify :D
Specifically, what I was seeing on the +1-level enemies was sort of a blue frosty effect on their chest, and they would maybe hesitate a bit, but then they'd just come at me full speed. By comparison, casting Chilblains on a same-level enemy would result in the big blue ice crystals rooting them to the spot. On the mission in question, I promise that it failed to immobilize the level 9 enemies every single time. I wish I could remember what those level 9s were named, specifically.

Yep. I can't remember what the button is named exactly, but in the SuperGroup window pane there's a button marked Settings or Edit or something. The first screen will be a bunch of stuff you can't edit unless you're given permissions, but the next screen will be a list of body parts, where you can elect to either use your costume's colors or your SG's, with the option to turn the emblem off. Whatever you choose is what will be displayed when you're in SG Mode, so you can opt to turn everything off and keep your costume as is.
Awesome, thanks :)

[Mekhazzio]

Specifically, what I was seeing on the +1-level enemies was sort of a blue frosty effect on their chest, and they would maybe hesitate a bit, but then they'd just come at me full speed. By comparison, casting Chilblains on a same-level enemy would result in the big blue ice crystals rooting them to the spot. On the mission in question, I promise that it failed to immobilize the level 9 enemies every single time. I wish I could remember what those level 9s were named, specifically.That's the key thing. It's not that they're higher level that's making them ignore the roots, it's what type of enemy they are. The frosty chest effect is also Chilblains, or specifically, the movement and attack speed debuff portions of Chilblains. If you see that, that means the attack has landed successfully, they're just shrugging off the ice-crystal immobilize portion of it. Even when you're much higher level than them, it still won't immobilize them in one shot.

Higher level has two effects on control powers: it makes them less accurate, and it reduces their duration. It doesn't make a control no longer control, except in very roundabout way. An enemy that requires two stacked controls before they're affected can, with high enough level, reduce the duration of your control effects so much that you simply can't cast them fast enough anymore to have two overlapped at once. That's it.

[Sailboat]

Also, don't be fooled by the fact that Howling Twilight is technically a resurrection power; it's enemy targeted, and serves well as a disorient, a slow, a tohit debuff, and a -regeneration power. I often forget that it is supposed to be for resurrecting people.

Heh. I play regularly with a "hardcore" supergroup, where we treat any defeat as a permanent death and delete/kick out/stop playing/remake the character. Yes, it's crazy.

Even on those hardcore teams, where a resurrect is useless, we use Howling Twilight, and it's so effective we started referring to its distinctive sound effect as "the Sound of Victory!" :)

[Bosstone]

Heh. I play regularly with a "hardcore" supergroup, where we treat any defeat as a permanent death and delete/kick out/stop playing/remake the character. Yes, it's crazy.How often do you guys get to 50?

Also, it's gotta be tough for some builds. I mean, for Fire Armor, rezzing is part of the attack chain. :D

[Mister Rik]

Oh yeah, one more question:

Do I honestly have to click "Agree" to the ToS every freakin' time I log in?

[Der Trihs]

Do I honestly have to click "Agree" to the ToS every freakin' time I log in?Sadly yes. And yes, it's irritating.

[smiling bandit]

I'm going with flight on my toons. As I mentioned in an earlier post, yeah, superspeed is hard to control.

But the Stealth Buff is fanastic. In solo play I can just race past so many enemies.

I'm thinking a plain street map would be better suited to this game than the current sorta-topographical thing it's got.

Bloody AGREE! A larger, more artistic map would be far more useful.


Thanks for all the advice and tips. I made a Kinetic Melee/Willpower Mutant Brute Hero and am easilydominating things so far, but am still low level. Jaggy the Fire Blast/Dark Miasma is having some trouble here and there getting knocked down, but after gettign knocked back to the hospital twice I've mostly figured it out. I may need to go hunting some lower-level mobs until I can get to level 10.

[smiling bandit]

Actually, let me say this: this is game is a remarkable mix of awesomeness and half-assery. There's a great deal of good work on some parts, and then thre's just elementary stupidity vomited up on top. You could fix so much of the crap with a single good week of work.

[Brainiac4]

True. But some of the half-assery grows on you after a while.

For example, Dangerosa and I have a standing joke that every single architect in Paragon City is either barking mad, on serious drugs, or both, because the offices have floors that cannot be in the same building, the same exterior door will lead to more than one interior (including swapping between office, underground lab and warehouse), and there are hallways that seem to exist for no purpose other than to have a water fountain around a corner at the end of them.

It could be irritating, but it's actually kind of pleasant once you get used to it.

And the awesomeness makes up for a lot. I love the fact that it's both a fun, four-color superhero game and a home for some serious number-crunching optimization. Understanding how the rules work makes a really big difference in how your character performs, which I enjoy.

[ArrMatey!]

When I was a much more active player, my mates and I used to claim that 'No Sane Architect' was the firm that designed 99% of the urban structures we did missions in. :)

[smiling bandit]

Well, I meant more along the lines of interface issues and bad meshes, myself.

Edit: So, do missions all level with you? because I've having a devil of a time with Dr. Graves mission in which I have to fend off my fellow villain's plans (where I'm the "Hero" and the target.) It's nasty, and I'm having to face down multiple liutentants a level above me.

It is not going well.

[Der Trihs]

Well, I meant more along the lines of interface issues and bad meshes, myself.The interface at least has a fair amount of customization available, between the options menu and keybinding.

So, do missions all level with you? No, they remain at the level you take them. Also, at the difficulty contacts ("notoriety contacts" on your minimap, make sure that option is turned on; the last Issue screwed it up somewhat) can adjust the mission's base level from -1 to +4.

[E-Sabbath]

While we're talking about Dark... there's a little secret I used to use in PvP that nobody ever figured out.

Dark Servant, or 'Fluffy', as he is commonly called, is a wonderful, wonderful pet. He heals, he tentacles, he even holds. But what you might not notice his that he has a -To Hit aura.

Stand inside him.

[smiling bandit]

Aha, tyty.

Right now I'm trying to find enough wiggle room to level up to 11. Slow going, since the missions I don't get splattered on are few and far between right now, even with Darkest Night.

[Lute Skywatcher]

[veteran forumgoer pet peeve]Gosh, and here I thought all the names had been taken already and the inability to find a good one was going to drive new players away.[/vfpp]

That was probably the best part of them creating a brand new server. I got some names I long wanted to use that had been taken on all the other servers literally years ago.Just recreated my CO flamethrower as a Fire Blaster on the VIP server. If you see a "Ghostflame" running around, that's me.

[Brainiac4]

Aha, tyty.

Right now I'm trying to find enough wiggle room to level up to 11. Slow going, since the missions I don't get splattered on are few and far between right now, even with Darkest Night.

You can adjust the difficulty of your missions, as noted above. At the lower levels, the hit on XP is not too bad, and since you start getting debt for defeats at level 10, it may be worth dropping down a level; you'l earn fewer XP but avoiding faceplants will avoid the 50% xp penalty for eliminating debt.

You also get patrol XP (CoX's equivalent of WoW 'rested xp') that gives a 50% bonus to earned XP for time spent offline. This is one thing that encourages altitis - one character builds up patrol XP while you play another.

[Sailboat]

How often do you guys get to 50?

Also, it's gotta be tough for some builds. I mean, for Fire Armor, rezzing is part of the attack chain. :D

Yes, it's tough. We've had exactly two characters reach 50, neither of which spent a lot of time teaming, so they might have been facing smaller spawns.

I currently have a level 46, played largely on teams, but I should caveat this achievement by pointing out the character is a Stone/Stone Tanker, and prodigiously tough. It's worth noting a previous attempt at the same build died somewhere in the 20s from massed tommygun fire against the Family -- I believe it was a rare case of "despite high defense, everyone rolled hits on me" bad luck, it happened blindingly fast.

My previous high was 44 on a Broadsword/Shield Scrapper. Parry is awesome. He died against 3 Carnie Master Illusionsists -- I think Parry didn't help against their powers, and he couldn't kill them rapidly because they phased. It wasn't my idea to aggro all 3 at once.

I had some success with a Fire/Dark Tanker...rebuilt him 3 times, each iteration lived into the 20s or mid-30s.

Wasn't me, but one person got a Blaster to 44.

Currently I have some alts in the teens and 20s -- we do have a casualty rate that varies but seems comparable to real warfare, and we've had teamwipes at times (shudder).

[Der Trihs]

[veteran forumgoer pet peeve]Gosh, and here I thought all the names had been taken already and the inability to find a good one was going to drive new players away.[/vfpp]

That was probably the best part of them creating a brand new server. I got some names I long wanted to use that had been taken on all the other servers literally years ago.True; I got Fimbulwinter for my Ice/Time Corruptor, taken on all the other servers.

[Mister Rik]

My cool character names -

On Justice:

Flaminatrix, Green Shriek, Chill Kill, Missterra, Cutdown, Reina de Noche, Bunko, Flamehound, Bruised Violet, Siyanda, Big Apple, Ankheza

On Liberty:

Cobalt Cutter, Rahne

On Exalted:

Whitefire

[Brainiac4]

My best character name is one I have on a couple of servers: Scraptacular.

I have a lot of others I like - Thermocline, Attack Vector, Illusion of Security, Bot Smash, Doctor Livingstone, Truck Driving Elvis - but Scraptacular is just so perfect. :)

[Brainiac4]

Oh, forgot about Jet Scream - I have that one on a couple of servers as well.

Also Resistor - Elec/Elec corruptor Praetorian. Resistance, of course.

[Der Trihs]

Cool or hard to get names in general then? Well, here's a few:

Mister Fist on Justice; my Super Strength/Willpower brute; and I'm amazed the name was free

Occam the Razor - Broadsword/Ninjutsu stalker. He eliminates unnecessary entities.

Winterwrath

Steel Sovereign

Lex Invictus, a Super Strength/Invulnerability brute; a hero, naturally

Steel Reaper

Taurus Malleus; made as soon as I won an Animal Pack in one of the code giveaways they had. A giant cyborg minotaur with a hammer

Divine Wrath (Two of them; one of which is of course an angry angel, Fire Melee/Shield to be specific)

The Will of the Storm

Deus Ex Machinist; Bots/Storm

Winterqueen & Hellqueen - two others I was surprised to get

Flora Fatale - my female Plant/Thorns Dom

Mr Murder

Winds of War my Mercenary/Storm; the name inspired the character

Hellforge my demonic Bots/Thermal; born of my attempts to come up with someone who'd have robots that were on fire

Shatterqueen - I was surprised it wasn't the name of a pre-existing comics character

Black Ops; was available only on one server, Champion

Queen of Legions - Necromancy/Thermal Mastermind

[Brainiac4]

Nice ones, Der Trihs. I think my favorite of yours is Deus Ex Machinist, but you have lots of great ones.

I forgot one of my other favorites, which I think I got from an SDMB suggestion in this very thread: Suspended Animator. Ice/Ice dominator in the Urban Legends villain group on protector. He's Walt Disney, of course.

[Quimby]

I was able to get the following on Exalted:

Nuclear-Winter
Thunder Snow
Terawatt (tried for Gigawatt first and it was taken but decided I liked Terawatt better anyway)
Red Wood (Redwood was taken)
Bleeding-Edge
Treble Clef (a Sonic, of course)
Ice-Pick

Had to use a few hyphens in there but still...

[Mister Rik]

I suppose the system is set to automatically reject "Superman" :D

How about "Ubermensch"?

I did spot a character named Total Defense whose costume was an almost perfect reproduction of Captain America's ...

[Bosstone]

I did spot a character named Total Defense whose costume was an almost perfect reproduction of Captain America's ...It's amazing how many people still try to get away with that crap. They're just going to get reported eventually.

[Quimby]

It's amazing how many people still try to get away with that crap. They're just going to get reported eventually.

Something I have seen is people who have generic costumes while out in the world but then as soon as you are with them in a mission they change to something stolen. Seems dumb to me. The whole point is to be creative and make up something.

[Mister Rik]

Go into options and turn off the display for other players' effects.
Okay, I went into Options, but I'm just not seeing any such option. I'd love it if I could find it, because some people like to stand around Ms. Liberty with their bigass auras (from their powers, not costume auras) active, and I can't get within a hundred yards of her without my graphics locking up to the point that I can barely even turn my character.


Though speaking of those costume auras, I gave Flaminatrix a fiery aura (though not the one named "Fiery" - I picked a different one and gave it fiery colors). I gave her the full-body job, but it was just ... too much. So I switched it to a fists & eyes aura that only activates when she's in combat.

[Lute Skywatcher]

Okay, I went into Options, but I'm just not seeing any such option. I'd love it if I could find it, because some people like to stand around Ms. Liberty with their bigass auras (from their powers, not costume auras) active, and I can't get within a hundred yards of her without my graphics locking up to the point that I can barely even turn my character.I think it's called "Suppress FX".

[Mister Rik]

I think it's called "Suppress FX".

I found "Suppress FX When Close" in the Advanced Graphics Settings, but the tooltip just says it suppresses effects that are on my character when the camera is close (like when I'm backed up against a wall). I enabled it anyway, and I'll see if it makes a difference.


On another note, is it just me or are some of these missions a little sparse on instructions? Detective Becktrees in Kings Row sent me on a mission to stop a bank robbery in Atlas Park, and it just dropped me in the mission zone with little more than "protect the bank" for instructions. No indicator on the map, no clue which building was supposed to be the bank, etc. Naturally, I failed, since it was time-sensitive.

[Der Trihs]

On another note, is it just me or are some of these missions a little sparse on instructions? Detective Becktrees in Kings Row sent me on a mission to stop a bank robbery in Atlas Park, and it just dropped me in the mission zone with little more than "protect the bank" for instructions. No indicator on the map, no clue which building was supposed to be the bank, etc. Naturally, I failed, since it was time-sensitive.There should be a dollar sign where the bank is. However it might have been bugged; I did a Mayhem yesterday (the villain equivalent) where the bank symbol didn't appear on the map for several minutes. First time that's ever happened to me.

[Mister Rik]

Heh - best random villain NPC chatter I've seen so far:

[NPC] Blood Brother Chopper: No, I didn't call you stupid. I said your comment was an oxymoron. It's a rhetorical figure in which incongruous or contradictory terms are put together. Am I the only one who reads the books we swipe around here?

:D

[Lute Skywatcher]

I found "Suppress FX When Close" in the Advanced Graphics Settings, but the tooltip just says it suppresses effects that are on my character when the camera is close (like when I'm backed up against a wall). I enabled it anyway, and I'll see if it makes a difference.Huh. Had no idea.On another note, is it just me or are some of these missions a little sparse on instructions? Detective Becktrees in Kings Row sent me on a mission to stop a bank robbery in Atlas Park, and it just dropped me in the mission zone with little more than "protect the bank" for instructions. No indicator on the map, no clue which building was supposed to be the bank, etc. Naturally, I failed, since it was time-sensitive.You're supposed to explore the area and stop the random vandalism, which earns extra time. You'll also encounter some vandals who aren't like the others, these will drop keys to doors that will also grant extra time when completed (like disarming all the bombs in a building). The bank will likely be somewhere along the far wall.

[Mister Rik]

You're supposed to explore the area and stop the random vandalism, which earns extra time. You'll also encounter some vandals who aren't like the others, these will drop keys to doors that will also grant extra time when completed (like disarming all the bombs in a building). The bank will likely be somewhere along the far wall.

Unfortunately, the vandals were all I could find. Then after a while a message came on my screen that said something like, "The bank robbers are getting away! Stop them!" and of course I had no clue where they were.

[E-Sabbath]

Somewhere between the bank and their getaway vehicle. It sometimes helps to go to the getaway vehicle (marked) and work your way towards the bank. Safeguards are not as much fun as bankrobbing.

[Der Trihs]

Safeguards are not as much fun as bankrobbing.They are however a lot more team friendly. I never team on Mayhems; there's always someone who rushes right to the bank and triggers all the Longbow ambushes at once.

[Mister Rik]

Oh my ... I've just discovered how much fun Mind Control is. I made a Magic Dominator - Mind Control/Electricity Assault hero named Cerebolt. With only three powers to her name (Mesmerize, Levitate, and Charged Bolts), I quickly figured out that she could take on and defeat a Lieutenant/Minion pair of enemies without either of them ever getting off a shot at her. The key was realizing that Mesmerize is a Hold effect, not an Immobilize, and that after I use Levitate to pick up and drop an enemy, they have to stand back up before they can try to attack. So it goes like this:

Mesmerize the Lieutenant

Immediately target the Minion and Levitate him, then hit him with Charged Bolts while he's getting up. This usually finishes him off. If not, Mesmerize him and then hit him with another Charged Bolts.

Once the Minion is down, leisurely wait for everything to recharge. Levitate the Lieutenant, hit him with Charged Bolts, then Mesmerize again. Wait to recharge, and repeat as necessary.

I felt like a WoW rogue stunlocking an opponent.

Also, instead of having her train Flight, I decided to try Leaping. Whoa. Super Jump is faster than flying, and a whole lot of fun!

Hey, does CoH have anything similar to the WoW Armory? It's a bit of a pain having to launch the game and keep it open in the background when I want to mention specific things about a character.

[Jophiel]

Also, instead of having her train Flight, I decided to try Leaping. Whoa. Super Jump is faster than flying, and a whole lot of fun!
In terms of speed, it goes:

Teleport > Superspeed > Super Jump > Flight

The trade-off being maneuverability and flexibility. I believe the "booster" (I guess now you buy them direct) powers Ninja Jump and the animal one are slightly slower than flight but a couple slots in Hurdle with jump enhancers makes it about as fast as unenhanced Super Jump.

[Bosstone]

Hey, does CoH have anything similar to the WoW Armory? It's a bit of a pain having to launch the game and keep it open in the background when I want to mention specific things about a character.Nope. Folks have been clamoring for it for years.

The best you can do for offline review is download Mids' Hero Designer, manually set up your character (though I think there's import tools available), and make sure it stays up to date with your character. Bit of a pain, really, although the program is a fantastic planner.

And yeah, the nice thing about Controllers and Dominators is their high survivability due to straight-up lockdown. They can be as survivable as tanks played well, simply because they just don't give the enemy a chance to attack.

That's really the big philosophical difference you'll find between City and WoW, or most other MMOs. WoW is focused on 1-to-1 'fair' combat, though tanks can solo a modest group of enemies. City is very much about a hero versus a horde of mooks. AOEs are excellent and nearly all playstyles can beat the crap out of a single enemy who's ranked as a Boss or lower. A single Minion is zero threat to just about everyone.

[Mister Rik]

Question about Architect Entertainment user-created missions -

I'm getting the impression that a lot of these are just designed to be "loot" (for lack of a better term) farms. I've loaded up a number of them that have 5-star ratings, only to walk into the first room and find myself swarmed by a dozen or more enemies all at once, with more steadily popping out of a nearby portal. These look as if they're intended for little more than AOE-ing until you've "earned" as many tickets (or whatever else they offer) as you want.

I've done a few AE stories that are actual fun, engaging stories, but those seem to be swimming in a sea of these "farms".

Am I getting the right impression here?

[Der Trihs]

Oh my ... I've just discovered how much fun Mind Control is. I made a Magic Dominator - Mind Control/Electricity Assault hero named Cerebolt.Hah, that's also known as "the Sith build".

With only three powers to her name (Mesmerize, Levitate, and Charged Bolts), I quickly figured out that she could take on and defeat a Lieutenant/Minion pair of enemies without either of them ever getting off a shot at her. The key was realizing that Mesmerize is a Hold effect, not an Immobilize, and that after I use Levitate to pick up and drop an enemy, they have to stand back up before they can try to attack. An important nitpick; Mesmirize (http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Mind_Control#Mesmerize) isn't a Hold, it's a Sleep. Now, most sleeps are considered not very good but Mesmerize is an exception because it can sleep even a boss with one shot. Mass Hypnosis is also a good Sleep if you solo a lot; you can knock out whole groups and beat them down one by one. Keep in mind that any form of damage will wake an enemy that's asleep, however.

Dominate is Mind Control's single target Hold; the single target holds are considered central powers of the control primary sets and should be taken right off. A Hold completely disables an enemy (barring Blasters, whose first two primary and first secondary powers can't be locked down).

[Der Trihs]

I've done a few AE stories that are actual fun, engaging stories, but those seem to be swimming in a sea of these "farms".

Am I getting the right impression here?
Sadly yes; and it's very irritating.

[Bosstone]

The AE would benefit magnificently if they just accepted that farm arcs will happen and added a Story/Farm selector. With the exception of some trolls, farmers don't really want to get in the way of players who want to tell stories, and the need to dress farms up as story arcs irritates everyone.

[Lute Skywatcher]

Question about Architect Entertainment user-created missions -

I'm getting the impression that a lot of these are just designed to be "loot" (for lack of a better term) farms. I've loaded up a number of them that have 5-star ratings, only to walk into the first room and find myself swarmed by a dozen or more enemies all at once, with more steadily popping out of a nearby portal. These look as if they're intended for little more than AOE-ing until you've "earned" as many tickets (or whatever else they offer) as you want.

I've done a few AE stories that are actual fun, engaging stories, but those seem to be swimming in a sea of these "farms".

Am I getting the right impression here?There are some by City staff and Guest Authors. If you're a fan of PvP Online (http://www.pvponline.com/), look for arc ID 337435.

[Lok]

It's amazing how many people still try to get away with that crap. They're just going to get reported eventually.

Someone posted a story on the CoH forum. Someone he knew created "The Incredible Bulk", huge body, green skin, purple pants, way back in the start of the game. He did it as a joke to see how long it took to get genericed. They were waiting to get a league for an iTrial together when the Bulk suddenly changed to a generic number and costume. Some on their league said, "Wow, that didn't take long, I just reported it." The guy played the character for years before it was reported. But he was caught eventually.

I found "Suppress FX When Close" in the Advanced Graphics Settings, but the tooltip just says it suppresses effects that are on my character when the camera is close (like when I'm backed up against a wall). I enabled it anyway, and I'll see if it makes a difference.


You can change the distance at which the effects are suppressed. For trials and teaming, I use the following


/suppressCloseFxDist 500 - You can set this distance to whatever you want. The larger the number, the farther away you can be and not see the effects.
/suppressCloseFx 1 - turns the suppression on
suppressCloseFx 0 - turns the suppression off.

In terms of speed, it goes:

Teleport > Superspeed > Super Jump > Flight

The trade-off being maneuverability and flexibility. I believe the "booster" (I guess now you buy them direct) powers Ninja Jump and the animal one are slightly slower than flight but a couple slots in Hurdle with jump enhancers makes it about as fast as unenhanced Super Jump.

Note that the addition of the Afterburner power in the Flight pool can bump your Fly speed up to SS levels. And actually enhances your control over position. But it does mean another power and some slots.

Question about Architect Entertainment user-created missions -

I'm getting the impression that a lot of these are just designed to be "loot" (for lack of a better term) farms. I've loaded up a number of them that have 5-star ratings, only to walk into the first room and find myself swarmed by a dozen or more enemies all at once, with more steadily popping out of a nearby portal. These look as if they're intended for little more than AOE-ing until you've "earned" as many tickets (or whatever else they offer) as you want.

I've done a few AE stories that are actual fun, engaging stories, but those seem to be swimming in a sea of these "farms".

Am I getting the right impression here?

Sadly yes. There are story arcs, and some very good ones, to play, but finding them is hard sometimes. I agree with Bosstone they need to just accept the farming and give them their own category.

[Mister Rik]

And speaking again of AE, I was a little disappointed to discover that there's no equivalent for Going Rogue characters (at least I couldn't find one, and people confirmed it doesn't exist when I asked in Global). My primary Loyalist character, Green Shriek, has reached level 11 and is suddenly finding it difficult to defeat enemies (not doing enough damage, missing a lot), even Minions. I was hoping for a way to get some of those DO enhancements to give her a bit of a boost.

Then again, is there simply a subtle difficulty increase after level 10? My "main" toon (so far anyway), Flaminatrix, is level 14 and fully loaded with level 15 DO enhancements (and a few level 17 DO's) that she earned via AE missions, and is starting to find the missions and enemies quite a bit more challenging. I almost gave up on one mission in The Hollows after being defeated for the third time, though that was mainly because I had to fly back more than a mile every time I woke up in the "hospital". I am curious, though: if you're doing a mission in an "instanced" location, do you have to be inside the "instance" to abandon the mission? When I pulled up the mission while standing in the hospital, the "Abandon" button was grayed out.

Green Shriek just did the Nova Praetoria version of the invention tutorial, and I got a big belly laugh out of the acronym for their program: IPECAC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipecac). That was just perfect coming from the smarmy, propaganda-spewing woman who got me started :D

[Der Trihs]

I am curious, though: if you're doing a mission in an "instanced" location, do you have to be inside the "instance" to abandon the mission? When I pulled up the mission while standing in the hospital, the "Abandon" button was grayed out.That's weird; never happened to me. And I've never tried to Abandon a mission while inside it; I assumed it wouldn't work.

Green Shriek just did the Nova Praetoria version of the invention tutorial, and I got a big belly laugh out of the acronym for their program: IPECAC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipecac). That was just perfect coming from the smarmy, propaganda-spewing woman who got me started :DIf you never have it's worth doing at least once while you are Resistance; starting with the second invention tutorial contact there's dialogue differences and different Clues, some of which are amusing.

[Mister Rik]

One thing I'm enjoying is the way at least some of the missions aren't exactly the same every time you do them on another character. I've noticed some where the various objectives within a building are in different places around the building. The most dramatic change was with one of the low-level missions you do for that nurse. It's after you talk to Ice-whatshisname (who looks remarkably like Booster Gold) and you go into the warehouse to stop the Skulls. The first time I did it, it turned out Iceboy had gone bad and I had to defeat him. On subsequent characters, he's shown up and admitted he'd thought about what I said to him and he'd decided to help.

[Mister Rik]

Is "Going Rogue" designed to be more challenging than the "basic" game? Or do the RNG gods just have it in for my main GR character?

I've got this level 11 Sonic Attack/Mental Manipulation character who is getting her ass handed to her repeatedly. The problem seems to be twofold: She keeps getting sent on missions where every single enemy is a level higher than her (with lieutenants everywhere), and despite having appropriate enhancements slotted, she can't hit the broad side of a barn. Miss, miss, miss, miss... Seriously, I'm seeing maybe 2 out of 5 attacks hit successfully.

[Der Trihs]

Is "Going Rogue" designed to be more challenging than the "basic" game? It's widely considered to be tougher. Although better written and designed than the older portions of the game, with fewer kill-alls and such.

I've got this level 11 Sonic Attack/Mental Manipulation character who is getting her ass handed to her repeatedly. The problem seems to be twofold: She keeps getting sent on missions where every single enemy is a level higher than her (with lieutenants everywhere), and despite having appropriate enhancements slotted, she can't hit the broad side of a barn. Miss, miss, miss, miss... Seriously, I'm seeing maybe 2 out of 5 attacks hit successfully.Well, level 11 is a little problematic; "Beginner's Luck" (the sub-level-20 accuracy bonus) is weakening, enemies are getting stronger, and you don't have Dual Origin enhancements yet. Getting to 12 and slotting DOs makes a noticeable difference; Training Origin enhancements are so weak that many people (including me) don't bother to buy them and just slot the ones that drop.

[Quimby]

Is "Going Rogue" designed to be more challenging than the "basic" game? Or do the RNG gods just have it in for my main GR character?

I've got this level 11 Sonic Attack/Mental Manipulation character who is getting her ass handed to her repeatedly. The problem seems to be twofold: She keeps getting sent on missions where every single enemy is a level higher than her (with lieutenants everywhere), and despite having appropriate enhancements slotted, she can't hit the broad side of a barn. Miss, miss, miss, miss... Seriously, I'm seeing maybe 2 out of 5 attacks hit successfully.

Praetoria is definitely more difficult. The enemies use damage types that are resisted less and are just over all tougher than the primal equivalents at that level. Plus many missions have ambushes. I don't know if it was intentional but it is true. It was even harder on release, they had to dial it back in patches.

In return for the toughness, we got a much better storyline for starting characters but now with the start of both Paragon City and the Isles being revamped, that isn't as much of a big deal anymore.

Re Accuracy. I am convinced that a bug introduced during Going Rogue, broke accuracy on low level characters because I find I miss a lot more since then. One time I missed 11 times in a row which is supposed to be impossible (there's a streak breaker in the code that auto hits if you miss a certain amount of times in a row).

Beginning characters have something called "Beginners luck" built in that is supposed to buff accuracy up to level 20. Sometimes it doesn't feel that way.

[Der Trihs]

Oh, about constantly running into Lieutenants; I've noticed that myself, that some low level missions suddenly seem to have far more than they used to. It could be a bug, or I could be fooling myself.

[Mister Rik]

Okay, I may have overstated the lieutenants thing. Upon closer inspection, it was a case of the main "gateways" within a mission each being manned by a pair of level 12 minions. Their conning yellow to me combined with the way they were kicking my ass and my attacks missing repeatedly fooled me into thinking "lieutenants".

[Lok]

One thing I'm enjoying is the way at least some of the missions aren't exactly the same every time you do them on another character. I've noticed some where the various objectives within a building are in different places around the building. The most dramatic change was with one of the low-level missions you do for that nurse. It's after you talk to Ice-whatshisname (who looks remarkably like Booster Gold) and you go into the warehouse to stop the Skulls. The first time I did it, it turned out Iceboy had gone bad and I had to defeat him. On subsequent characters, he's shown up and admitted he'd thought about what I said to him and he'd decided to help.

It depends on the dialogue choice you make when you talk to him. There are some much bigger differences in the red-side missions that do the same sort of thing. The branching dialogue makes a real difference in how stuff progresses for you.

[smiling bandit]

Jaggy has hit 14 and needs to get up to 15 to finish off Dr. Graves' fight. I predict some grinding, as I can't seem to find much in the way of missions anymore (for some reason). I am on the starter "storyline" thing with Alastor.

Definitely doing better after I switched to my second powers build and went with Rain of Fire. Doesn't seem like much, but that stream of 1 damage ticks has helped me considerably. However, I can't seem to get any useful DO's yet - very single one is Science/Tech, dammit!

The result is that I've got almost no enhancements slotted, though I have coughed up the cash for a few damage augments. I think I defintiely need +accuracy on my x1.00 accuracy attacks, though.

Darkest Night is now doing much more for me, although some missions are just cruel. Even fighting at -1 level, the Dr. Graves missions where you have to be the "hero" for your fellows? My God, that's nightmarish. I got stuck fighting two Snake bosses at once, and that was not going to work. I had to cheeze it by fleeing and pulling one away. Then I later had to do fight off one boss to 50%, then she fled and got replaced by another snake boss I had to kill! Ouch.

That was a rough day. I got it though. I think I need some more Invention enhancements to carry through, but I can't easily find what I need. Problematically, supplies are low on the AH, but my stuff sells for much more to vendiors, so I have little reason to sell on the AH. Plus, this game has a horribly designed interface., which does not help.

[Jophiel]

However, I can't seem to get any useful DO's yet - very single one is Science/Tech, dammit!
Enemy types drop enhancements related to their own types. So Family (the mafia goons) drop Natural, Circle of Thorns (the wizards) drop Magic, Goldbrickers (tech thieves) drop Tech, etc. For DO's, it'll be the base type and one of its two related types so Circle of Thorns might drop Magic-Natural or Magic-Mutant but never Magic-Science/Magic-Tech. When you're introduced to contacts, they often give a hint about what sort of faction that contact deals with ("She has some leads on the Family and Crey..."). If you're a magic origin fighting a faction like Crey Industries, the only useful enhancements you'll see will be the "reward" ones for defeating specific bosses, completing arcs, etc.

As you get higher in levels, this becomes less and less of an issue since your main source of income will likely be salvage/invention recipe drops and you'll likely transition to using Invention Origin enhancements.

[Quimby]

Word of advice: when you hit level 16 on a character, make sure you do the three Radio/Paper missions and the bank run (Skyway City) because it gives a self rez power that is probably the best power reward for Safeguard/Mayhem missions after the Raptor Pack in the game.

[E-Sabbath]

Street Justice is live in the store.

[Mister Rik]

Jaggy has hit 14 and needs to get up to 15 to finish off Dr. Graves' fight.
Bruised Violet, my now-level-9 Magic Dark Melee/Dark Armor Brute, just finished the third stage of the Dr. Graves stuff (I think third; met the other contestants, annoyed the Arbiters, came back to do the first stage of the actual competition). She also did the initial Lt. Harris chain. I say "initial" because I left him alive at the end so I assume he'll show up again later.

Definitely doing better after I switched to my second powers build and went with Rain of Fire.
I love the visual for that ability. It surprised me the first time Flaminatrix used it, because I was expecting a smaller radius and a visual effect similar to the WoW warlock spell with the same/similar name. Instead, it looks like actual rain that is fire.

The result is that I've got almost no enhancements slotted, though I have coughed up the cash for a few damage augments. I think I defintiely need +accuracy on my x1.00 accuracy attacks, though.
+damage and +accuracy are the first enhancements I try to slot in each attack power, followed by recharge reduction. As far as obtaining enhancements, hie thee to Architect Entertainment and run some of the stories. You'll earn tickets that you can spend on DO enhancements (make sure to select "Architect Rewards" when you select a story). The best part is that the same DO enhancements that would cost you a few thousand Inf/each at a vendor cost only 35 AE tickets/each from the AE Ticket Vendor.

Problematically, supplies are low on the AH, but my stuff sells for much more to vendiors, so I have little reason to sell on the AH. Plus, this game has a horribly designed interface., which does not help.
The issue I'm having with Wentworth's is that the items I find don't seem to have "standard" vendor prices and so I'm not sure what price to set when I post something. Obviously I want to try to get more than I'd get by just selling them to a vendor, but ... there's no way to see what a vendor would give me while I'm standing at Wentworth's. So I got me a spiral notebook, and I visit a vendor to see what they'll give me for each item, and then write everything down, and then go to Wentworth's and post everything for a bit more than the vendor price.

But then I made another problematic discovery: the vendor price changes depending on what zone the vendor is in, apparently. I'd picked up some enhancements and recipes that I wanted to sell, so I checked with a vendor in, I think, Skyway City, and wrote the prices down. But I didn't actually get to Wentworth's until I was back in Atlas Plaza and by that time I'd picked up a few more things I wanted to sell. So I checked with one of the vendors there, and discovered that the vendors in AP were offering considerably lower prices than the vendors in SC. So that kind of screws up my "formula". I think I need to check my prices at a vendor in the highest-level zone I can safely enter. I think it's going to take me a while to master Wentworth's.

Enemy types drop enhancements related to their own types. So Family (the mafia goons) drop Natural, Circle of Thorns (the wizards) drop Magic, Goldbrickers (tech thieves) drop Tech, etc. For DO's, it'll be the base type and one of its two related types so Circle of Thorns might drop Magic-Natural or Magic-Mutant but never Magic-Science/Magic-Tech. When you're introduced to contacts, they often give a hint about what sort of faction that contact deals with ("She has some leads on the Family and Crey..."). If you're a magic origin fighting a faction like Crey Industries, the only useful enhancements you'll see will be the "reward" ones for defeating specific bosses, completing arcs, etc.
Ah, that's good to know. I've just been choosing from the missions offered based on which one looks most interesting in those situations where the contact offers a choice between two missions or two different contacts to be introduced to. I'll need to figure out which enemies drop Mutation enhancements, since I seem to have more Mutation origin characters than anything else. Trolls? The Lost?


I tried a couple more 5-star-rated AE stories with the "solo friendly" keyword last night that left me wanting to track down and punch the authors. One was in an office building where I fought a series of ridiculously easy, identical minions, and then at the end there was a completely impossible-to-beat-solo-at-my-level super elite archvillain Mastermind who I couldn't even get close to because of his minions.

The second was a ridiculously long, convoluted maze of tunnels (the "magic" set) where I spent over an hour just trying to find my way, killing identical minions all the way through and exploring every square inch of the place, only to discover that either the author forgot to actually add the boss (the only mission objective), or hid the boss in such an obscure place that even my thorough exploration couldn't locate her. Though I think that author just needs a stern talking-to rather than a punch in the nose; judging by the brevity of the mission description, the atrocious grammar and spelling, and the incredibly lame attempt at a "subtle" gay joke, I suspect "very young kid designed this".

I also had to laugh at myself for one story I picked. I neglected to check the "My Level" box when I searched, and I'd gotten used to the stories having a "1-54" level range and scaling themselves to my level, and I neglected to actually look at the level range. So it was quite a surprise when my level 19 character entered the mission and was confronted immediately with a pair of level 31 enemies! The most surprising thing, though, was that I actually managed to defeat one of them before turning tail and running back out the door :D

Melee characters: I'm having much, much better luck with Brutes than with Scrappers. Maybe I'm misunderstanding something, but the difference between the two terms suggests that "Brutes" feature slow but powerful attacks, while "Scrappers" are weaker but faster. But I'm getting frustrated with my Scrappers because their attacks just seem to have too long recharge rates. My one Stalker character has the same problem. As a result, I've had to eschew taking a Power Pool travel ability at the first opportunity in favor of a third attack ability, just so I have something better than Brawl to use while waiting for my two initial attacks to recharge.

[Jophiel]

Mutation is a tough one because there's very few mutant enemy types. I think The Lost are as high as it gets (5th Column werewolves used to be but they were changed to Science). For DOs, you might want to go with Magic or Natural and hope to get the -Mutant DO. You're kind of out of luck for SOs but you can always make money to buy them plus you'll get them as a reward at certain points.

I don't want to oversell the difficulty; my first 50 was a mutant Defender back before the Invention system so SOs were the best we could get. It's nothing crippling but I thought you'd want to know so you didn't waste a bunch of time looking for high level mutant groups.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding something, but the difference between the two terms suggests that "Brutes" feature slow but powerful attacks, while "Scrappers" are weaker but faster.
Brutes are tougher in raw states but require "rage" to build up. As rage builds from attacking or being attacked, their damage ramps up so you're somewhat dependent to keep on the move and in combat to keep yourself doing the maximum damage. Scrappers are always at the top of their game damage-wise but have less hit points and defenses to start. Once you're high level and fully enhanced, the practical differences become much slimmer.

As a result of this, Brutes actually benefit from having some quick attacks so you can always be building rage vs all slow "heavy" attacks.

[Jophiel]

States = stats. Missed the edit window on that one :D

[Bosstone]

Couple things, Rik:

You're killing yourself with the vendor comparison stuff unnecessarily. Vendors buy three things from you: TO/DO/SO enhancements, salvage, and recipes.

For recipes:
- You can either choose to vendor white recipes or craft them to use or sell. White recipes are freely purchasable at the university, so most people don't bother to buy the recipes themselves off the market when they're mass-crafting. Crafting and selling dropped recipes can be profitable since you're not spending the money on purchasing the recipe from the university, but it takes some time and effort.
- Yellow and orange recipes are a little trickier and may require comparison shopping, but you only need to do that at Wentworth's. Most common yellow/orange recipes will only be selling for 10k or less, but occasionally the IO you can craft from them is worth significantly more (of course you have to account for the salvage used in crafting as well).
- In general, recipe crafting is dicey at low levels, but much more stable at 50. The only exception are special IOs, like stealth or +End or +Rech, which are actually worth more at low levels. That's for the advanced class, though.

For salvage:
- IIRC, vendor prices are always 100 for white salvage, 250 for yellow, and 1000 for rare. You're almost always better off selling on Wentworth's; while white and yellow tend to go for 10-100 inf on Wentworth's, orange tends to go for 100k - 4 mil, so it evens out and this way you save on places to go.

For TO/DO/SO enhancements:
- Just vendor them. Seriously. Unless you want to use them, go to the nearest NPC who'll buy them and unload. Don't comparison shop. Nobody wants them on Wentworth's. You won't sell for very much and you'll waste auction slots trying to. You will save so much time by just vendoring enhancements (and not bothering to look for the best price) that the extra drops you'll earn from spending time playing instead of shopping will make up for it.

Regarding Brutes vs Scrappers:
- Brutes are slower in that Fury requires some time to build up, but if you can maintain a high level of Fury they're pretty hard-hitting. Scrappers don't have a gradual build-up, since their Critical Hits are random chance, so they have a much more consistent damage output that's a fair bit higher than Brutes at rest but a little less than a full-Fury Brute.
- Defense-wise, both Brutes and Scrappers have the same base defenses, but Brutes can be pumped up to Tanker max levels given enough effort, while Scrappers cap their defenses at a lower level.

Scrappers are by no means weak, mind. They're simply more consistent, putting out the same damage with their first attack as with their last, while Brutes need to maintain a constant momentum to be awesome. In the long run, they're pretty much equal; it's just a matter of which playstyle you prefer. It's entirely possible to not click with Scrappers but love Brutes and vice versa.

[Jophiel]

I'll defer to Bosstone for any discrepancies between his description of Brutes/Stalkers and mine.

[Lok]

Mutation is a tough one because there's very few mutant enemy types. I think The Lost are as high as it gets (5th Column werewolves used to be but they were changed to Science). For DOs, you might want to go with Magic or Natural and hope to get the -Mutant DO. You're kind of out of luck for SOs but you can always make money to buy them plus you'll get them as a reward at certain points.

I believe that Rikti take over for the Lost in Mutation drops at high levels.


Brutes are tougher in raw states but require "rage" to build up. As rage builds from attacking or being attacked, their damage ramps up so you're somewhat dependent to keep on the move and in combat to keep yourself doing the maximum damage. Scrappers are always at the top of their game damage-wise but have less hit points and defenses to start. Once you're high level and fully enhanced, the practical differences become much slimmer.

As a result of this, Brutes actually benefit from having some quick attacks so you can always be building rage vs all slow "heavy" attacks.

[pet peeve]Fury (http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Fury#Fury), it is Fury that Brutes build. Rage (http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Super_Strength#Rage) is a power in the Super Strength powerset that makes the set really rock. [/pet peeve]

Couple things, Rik:

For salvage:
- IIRC, vendor prices are always 100 for white salvage, 250 for yellow, and 1000 for rare. You're almost always better off selling on Wentworth's; while white and yellow tend to go for 10-100 inf on Wentworth's, orange tends to go for 100k - 4 mil, so it evens out and this way you save on places to go.

Close. According to Paragonwiki, it is 250, 1000, and 5000 for vendoring Invention salvage. It is important to check what the going price is on the consignment house for all of it. While most common salvage doesn't go for much, there are pieces that sell very well. Alchemical Silver is usually in the mid 20k range.

You may want to sell stuff on the consignment house even if it doesn't go for much. Selling 50 Salvage pieces gets you the Scrounger badge and +2 to your salvage inventory size. Selling enough of anything can increase the number of slots you have at the consignment house. There are other badges (http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Invention_System_Capacity) that can also increase your salvage, recipe, and selling amounts.

[Bosstone]

I'll defer to Bosstone for any discrepancies between his description of Brutes/Stalkers and mine.You're definitely right in that quick attacks are actually more useful for a Brute. A Claws Brute is a scary, scary thing, since Claws has some incredibly fast attacks. A general tip for starting Brutes, in fact, is to have Brawl on auto until you have enough attacks to make a chain. That way, whenever you're not actually attacking with something strong, Brawl keeps your Fury bar from fading.

But yeah, Scrappers and Brutes start out with the same defenses but where Scrappers cap at 75% for resistance, Brutes cap at 90%, same as Tankers.

Close. According to Paragonwiki, it is 250, 1000, and 5000 for vendoring Invention salvage. It is important to check what the going price is on the consignment house for all of it. While most common salvage doesn't go for much, there are pieces that sell very well. Alchemical Silver is usually in the mid 20k range.

You may want to sell stuff on the consignment house even if it doesn't go for much. Selling 50 Salvage pieces gets you the Scrounger badge and +2 to your salvage inventory size. Selling enough of anything can increase the number of slots you have at the consignment house. There are other badges (http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Invention_System_Capacity) that can also increase your salvage, recipe, and selling amounts.I thought I was probably off, but I was going from memory. And yeah, I typically will just dump my stuff for 10 inf each unless it's 10k or more, and then I'll start matching the last 5 sales minus a small undercut.

Vendoring salvage is a last-ditch thing, only if you just really don't want to deal with the auction house.

[Lute Skywatcher]

Mutation is a tough one because there's very few mutant enemy types. I think The Lost are as high as it gets (5th Column werewolves used to be but they were changed to Science).Someone really needs to update the list of who drops what. The only ones that Google can find top out at level 40!

[Jophiel]

Rikti are science, not Mutations. Which makes little sense once you've gone through the plotline but there it is. Likewise, Devouring Earth are science, not mutant.

Trust me, I tried everyone back when I was leveling that Defender.

[Tom Scud]

Huh. So apparently free to play is active now. Is the main SDMB group still on Virtue? I just created a Gadgets/Ice Defender named Daimon Kringle (Son of Santa).

[Lute Skywatcher]

Is the main SDMB group still on Virtue?Blue Side = Virtue; Red Side = Protector.

[Mister Rik]

Thanks for the tips, Bosstone! It's mainly been recipes I'm trying to sell on the AH, along with a couple IO's I've made. The problem I've had with trying to compare prices at Wentworth's is that half the stuff I post comes up with nothing at all in the bid history box, and the other half comes up with a list of bids for 555 Inf., which is well below the vendor price on most of this stuff. Seriously, every single bid history that comes up (on Justice, anyway, the only server where I've done anything at the AH). shows a bunch of 555 bids. It's like there's one guy out there just bidding 555 on everything. Granted, this has all taken place with stuff I've found on a particular character between the levels of 16 and 19. I'm assuming for the time being that a lot of this is just because of the low-level nature of my goods, and things will change at higher levels.

As far as crafting, I'm thinking I may be better off just waiting until a higher level before I bother with it? Some (all?) of the yellow level 20 recipes require an expenditure of 32k Inf, which at this point (level 19) is a huge chunk of my Influence. I don't want to spend that and then discover I can't recoup it when I sell it, so I've only used it for inventions I'm going to use for myself.

New question:

Is there any point at which I can tweak a character's body dimensions (as opposed to just modifying the costume)? I've made a couple petite, slender female characters that look fine when they're just standing there in a heroic pose, but once they start running they just look annoyingly ... bow-legged. It seems to be a case of their thighs being too thin relative to their hips. I've figured out how to compensate for this when creating a new female character, but I'd love to be able to "correct" it on existing characters.

[Mister Rik]

Oh yeah, one more: Anybody here play on a Mac? I set a hotkey for taking screenshots, but for the life of me I can't figure out where they get saved to, since there's no actual CoH folder for the Mac version.

[Jophiel]

I have no idea how it breaks down now with the cash shop but the Science costume booster used to allow you to access special tailors ("surgeons") where you could change your body sliders or even select a new body type (m/f/huge).

I assume the ability is now sold as a stand alone or something.

[Bosstone]

Thanks for the tips, Bosstone! It's mainly been recipes I'm trying to sell on the AH, along with a couple IO's I've made. The problem I've had with trying to compare prices at Wentworth's is that half the stuff I post comes up with nothing at all in the bid history box, and the other half comes up with a list of bids for 555 Inf., which is well below the vendor price on most of this stuff. Seriously, every single bid history that comes up (on Justice, anyway, the only server where I've done anything at the AH). shows a bunch of 555 bids. It's like there's one guy out there just bidding 555 on everything. Granted, this has all taken place with stuff I've found on a particular character between the levels of 16 and 19. I'm assuming for the time being that a lot of this is just because of the low-level nature of my goods, and things will change at higher levels.If you were trying to sell DOs on the market, I'm not surprised that there was no bid history. Believe me when I say that there is absolutely no player-driven market for them, both because they're freely accessible on the vendors and because you grow out of them by level 22. They're like white vendor gear in WoW.

As for the 555, I don't know what you were trying to sell there, but it's not uncommon for a marketeer to put in a lot of low-level bids in an attempt to flip stuff. Putting in an unusual number also helps track your bids, since names aren't given; if I bid 10,027 for something that normally sells for 10,000, I can see my bid in the history (provided there's not 5+ transactions that come after mine, anyway).As far as crafting, I'm thinking I may be better off just waiting until a higher level before I bother with it? Some (all?) of the yellow level 20 recipes require an expenditure of 32k Inf, which at this point (level 19) is a huge chunk of my Influence. I don't want to spend that and then discover I can't recoup it when I sell it, so I've only used it for inventions I'm going to use for myself.Yeah, crafting is an activity for the intermediate player. You generally won't have the inf to really start playing with that until your mid-30s or so, unless you get a lucky recipe drop.

Actually, speaking of that: if you want cash, when you get to level 20 you can start running tip missions. You'll pick up random tips in the course of fighting mooks, which will send you on alignment missions. Do enough alignment missions, and you can opt to assert your morality; if you're blueside that will be Hero or Vigilante. Go Hero, and as you do alignment/morality missions, you'll acquire Hero merits. You can trade 1 or 2 in for certain recipes which sell INCREDIBLY well on the market. (Examples: a level 20 Miracle +Recovery or, when you turn 22, a level 25 Luck of the Gambler +7.5 Recharge.) That'll get you set up with more than enough cash to buy all the SOs you could want, as well as play around with crafting IOs.

You can also play the AE for a while, then spend your tickets on a bunch of common low-level yellow/orange recipes. Usually you'll luck out on one or two really valuable ones.

The moment you do this, you will realize just how borked the game's economy is. But hey, it's fun nonetheless.

[Mister Rik]

when you get to level 20 you can start running tip missions.
Flaminatrix juuuuust hit level 20 tonight! I'll keep my eyes open for those tips - that sounds like fun.

[Bosstone]

Flaminatrix juuuuust hit level 20 tonight! I'll keep my eyes open for those tips - that sounds like fun.Tip missions are some of the most fun solo content the game has right now. They're short, interesting, not at all convoluted (unlike some of the longer story arcs), and they do an excellent job of making you feel like a hero or villain (or rogue or vigilante), which the standard content lacks from time to time.

[Der Trihs]

You're definitely right in that quick attacks are actually more useful for a Brute. A Claws Brute is a scary, scary thing, since Claws has some incredibly fast attacks. A general tip for starting Brutes, in fact, is to have Brawl on auto until you have enough attacks to make a chain. That way, whenever you're not actually attacking with something strong, Brawl keeps your Fury bar from fading.This is an especially useful trick to keep in mind, because Brawl doesn't cost any endurance. You can spam it constantly, keeping your Fury up even when you are running low on endurance.

I'm assuming for the time being that a lot of this is just because of the low-level nature of my goods, and things will change at higher levels.Besides what everyone else said, keep in mind that right now there's a a big surge of low level characters, creating a glut of low level salvage & recipes on the market. Predictable result; a crash in prices for low level stuff.

[Tom Scud]

I must say, I'm finding combat really dull at low levels, since it basically consists of sitting around and waiting for one of my two or so attack skills to cycle. How soon does this get better?

[Der Trihs]

Pretty fast, since the low levels generally go by quickly.

[smiling bandit]

Well, thanks for the tips guys. Some of this could be pretty-

Wait, I can put Brawl on Auto? How?! For the love of Liord Recluse that'd be helpful.

I've actually gotten to like this game, despite its many, numerous, obvious, impossible-to-miss flaws. But geeze, stuff like this makes me realize how poorly I understand the game.

[Quimby]

I must say, I'm finding combat really dull at low levels, since it basically consists of sitting around and waiting for one of my two or so attack skills to cycle. How soon does this get better?

Take the power Hasten in the Speed pool and you can use your powers more often.

Also some power sets have shorter recharges than others. Try Claws, it has short recharge times for the most part. I made a Claws/Electric Armor Scrapper last night and found him quite fun.

[Lute Skywatcher]

Well, thanks for the tips guys. Some of this could be pretty-

Wait, I can put Brawl on Auto? How?! For the love of Liord Recluse that'd be helpful.Anything can be put on Auto. CTRL + LMB, IIRC.

[smiling bandit]

Kinetic melee is pretty fun, too. All my powers sound like a motor revving up. :D

[Bosstone]

It also gets easier once you hit DOs (and especially SOs) and have enough slots to throw a Recharge enhancement in your attacks. Some builds really only need 2 or 3 attacks because they cycle so quickly, with the rest being situational powers.

But yes, the low levels are slow. I can't stick with Tankers because I'm so used to playing Scrappers and Brutes, and the lack of significant attack options before mid-20s is just painful to me.

[Mister Rik]

Anything can be put on Auto. CTRL + LMB, IIRC.

I was going to be a smartass and ask for a more detailed explanation, since my Mac doesn't come with an LMB key, when I realized you meant Left Mouse Button.

Though now I wonder if that will work on my Mac, since <ctrl>+left-click in the Mac OS simulates a right-click (leftover from when a lot of Mac users still had one-button mice). Guess there's only one way to find out ...

[Tom Scud]

I was going to be a smartass and ask for a more detailed explanation, since my Mac doesn't come with an LMB key, when I realized you meant Left Mouse Button.

Though now I wonder if that will work on my Mac, since <ctrl>+left-click in the Mac OS simulates a right-click (leftover from when a lot of Mac users still had one-button mice). Guess there's only one way to find out ...

Try the various other keys if CTRL doesn't work. Option maybe, which isn't on the PC keyboard. (I remember figuring this out back when I was gaming on my Mac laptop, which in fact doesn't have a two button mouse, but I don't remember the exact answer).

[Onomatopoeia]

I logged in for the first time last night since last October. Wow. A lot of changes.

The look of City Hall in Atlas Park has been changed!

Galaxy City is now inaccessible/gone. Logical, IMO, as no one ever went there unless they had to anyway. I'm sure there's a story behind the change, but I'm too lazy to read the forums.

Hoverboards!

I don't remember Tips missions and Praetoria from when I was on last, but if they were there I'd probably pretty much lost interest in the game by then.

Heroes can now go to the villain side, and vice-versa! It's about time.

New VIP server!

New tutorial zone!

Audible narration in tutorial zone!

Veteran milestones are now recognized yearly (with badges) instead of quarterly.

I don't know what Lambda and BAF are, I presume TFs, but that's what most of chatter was about last night.

Folks are actually doing Eden Trial again. :)

There were more villain player characters in Talos and Peregrine last night than heroes. Freaky! I went to Mercy Island and Port Oakes on the villain side, which were dead, dead, dead, just as I remember.

New CoT villains! Defenders? Weird looking guys with smoke rising from their heads.

Incarnate powers!

The new Mac client, which took forever to download, seems more stable than the old one.

The backdoor at the edge of the map east of the Portal building in Peregrine now leaves you in the middle of the ocean in Talos instead of at the Ferry entrance. :( Probably a programming oversight.

New Pool powers!

I'm sure there are other new features I noticed last night that I'm forgetting, but all in all, a net positive for a game I'd grown tired of after 7 years.

[mlees]

Also check your "keybind" options in game. (Directed at Mister Rik.)

[Mister Rik]

Galaxy City is now inaccessible/gone.
Galaxy City done blowed up real good!

[Bosstone]

Galaxy City is now inaccessible/gone. Logical, IMO, as no one ever went there unless they had to anyway. I'm sure there's a story behind the change, but I'm too lazy to read the forums.It's now the tutorial zone, which is a lot faster and more interesting than Outbreak was.

I'm sad about the change, since I liked being able to play in Galaxy away from the Atlastards, but I can cope.I don't remember Tips missions and Praetoria from when I was on last, but if they were there I'd probably pretty much lost interest in the game by then.Issue 18, Going Rogue, was released last August, but it took a little while plus Issue 19 to get everything shaken out, so yeah it was probably around then.I don't know what Lambda and BAF are, I presume TFs, but that's what most of chatter was about last night.Part of the Incarnate system. They're endgame trials, most analogous to World of Warcraft raids but more generally accessible.Incarnate powers!And they are awesome. But they take some work to get.I'm sure there are other new features I noticed last night that I'm forgetting, but all in all, a net positive for a game I'd grown tired of after 7 years.Paragon Studios has made a few major missteps, but overall I seriously approve of the direction they're going in with the latest updates and the new F2P hybrid pricing model. The game really feels revitalized.

The depressing thing is as much as I love the game and been following it, I have a hard time playing it these days. If I'm teamed, I have a lot of fun, but on my own I have a real hard time getting motivated to play.

[Tom Scud]

I must say, as a cheapskate, that the 2 character limit feels MUCH more constraining than any of the free-to-play limits I hit in LotRO.

[Mister Rik]

Did yesterday's patch bugger up the tab-targeting? It was already a little wonky to begin with, but after the patch it seems to be going out of its way to pick targets on the other side of the room/at the other end of the corridor/way over there, instead of cycling to the next guy in the crowd that's beating on me. I'm forced to click-target.

So now that Flaminatrix is past level 20, I'm starting run into a lot of timed missions. Out of curiosity, does anybody know if the timer pauses during these sometimes interminable loading screens? Most of the timers so far have given me way more than enough time, but I don't know if that will always be the case. On a related note, I'd like to shake my fist in indignation at whoever thought it was a good idea to construct the interiors of Arachnos bases almost entirely out of perforated metal. The see-through nature of that stuff means that my video card has to render not only the walls and floor of whatever room/corridor I'm in, but everything on the other side as well, sometimes on through multiple walls, and my card just doesn't handle that well at all. I ran an AE story yesterday that took place entirely in Arachnos bases. The final mission was timed (short timer, to boot), and between running back after getting killed and the almost constant graphics-lag screen-freezes, I probably lost a good 4-5 minutes.

Bruised Violet, my main villain, is level 11 now and finished the Dr. Graves competition storyline, at least up through winning the Kill Contest. I think somebody else above mentioned how tough Crosscut's "insidious kill-the-hero" mission was. I'm definitely not a fan of these "try to beat two higher-level-than-you lieutenants, simultaneously" situations.

I'm starting to wonder, though, about the Rogue Isles - is it ever a nice sunny day there? I hardly get to enjoy my villains' cunningly crafted costumes because it's always so dark and gloomy. It's like those islands are located just off the Oregon coast. (I made a number of trips to the Oregon coast in my youth, and I swear there was no such thing as a "sunny day at the beach" on the Oregon coast. Actually, the first time I visited Darkshore in WoW, the first thing that popped into my head was, "Geez, this looks just like the Oregon coast...) I guess in the case of CoH, these islands are actually located off the New England coast, since one of the in-game informational "tips" informed me that Paragon City is located in Rhode Island.

I've also noticed that at least one of the studios involved in making this game must be Asian, judging by some really odd word choices I've encountered here and there in dialogue and mission text. For example, there are a couple early hero missions where the text says something like, "spreading terror/chaos amongst the city" ("throughout" would have been the more appropriate word, in the context of the sentence), and last night I spotted a villain's chatter bubble saying something like, "What are you glimpsing at?" Basically, these errors suggest a non-native English speaker who didn't quite get the subtle difference in meaning between words that mean sort of the same thing. It's a whole different feel from the slew of spelling/grammar/homonym errors I've catalogued in WoW (http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1251975804?page=6#105)— those are clearly written by Americans — some of whom don't understand their own native language — and suffer from drastic editing/proofreading fail.

[Jophiel]

As far as I know, the CoH development team is in the States and much of the flavor text is from Melissa "War Witch" Bianco. "Glimpsing" may have been her attempt at creating some sort of game world slang. There's tons of it in Praetoria and some select phrases wind up in the "real world" factions as well, especially among lower level gangs-types.

Almost every timed mission gives you more than ample time to get things done with a lunch break in the middle. There's a few severe exceptions where it almost seems that the intent is for you to fail (three minutes to find a glowy in a five level multi-elevator Crey lab) but failure has no real consequence. The NPC just says "You tried your best but it looks like the data was lost. Let's try this other place instead..." rather than "You got the data. Hey, this says we need to go to [same other place] and find..."

[Mister Rik]

Almost every timed mission gives you more than ample time to get things done with a lunch break in the middle. There's a few severe exceptions where it almost seems that the intent is for you to fail (three minutes to find a glowy in a five level multi-elevator Crey lab) but failure has no real consequence. The NPC just says "You tried your best but it looks like the data was lost. Let's try this other place instead..." rather than "You got the data. Hey, this says we need to go to [same other place] and find..."

Going Rogue Resistance quest to find data on Mr. G. 2 minutes, three floors. Not gonna happen :p

One of the first timed missions I got gave me 1 hour to enter a warehouse, arrest all of the Council members inside, and stop their leader from escaping. About five minutes in, after exploring less than half of the first level, the boss apparently escaped and the mission failed. I was like, "BWUH?!" I never even saw the guy. I thought something had glitched because it just went to a loading screen while I was right in the middle of combat, and I didn't get the "fail" message until after the loading screen. Fortunately, the other timed missions I've gotten haven't been like that - they've been mainly 60 to 90 minutes to either defeat everybody in a location and/or collect X number of glowies.

Out of curiosity, is this game supposed to be set in the 1960s-70s? I'm basing that supposition on all the monument placards that describe events that happened in the '30s and '40s, the styles of the cars, and a lot of the female hairstyles.

[Bosstone]

No, it's 'modern day'; that just happens to be kind of vague. There's so much metahuman/alien influence on the city's technology that it doesn't really matter what year it actually is.

The 30s-40s were important mainly because that's when metahumans began showing up, starting with Statesman and Recluse. After that, the timeline has varied so drastically from our world that it's not really worth it to try to match dates.

Really, if it were the 60s, how could you tell? How would it matter? So it's just left as an undefined 'modern day'.

[Jophiel]

It's modern day. You're not the first to mention the cars. The low-res can be explained by the age of the game but that doesn't explain the body models.

They look even more ridiculous in ultra-sleek Praetoria. Likewise the silly block cell phones from c. 1995

[mlees]

Did yesterday's patch bugger up the tab-targeting? It was already a little wonky to begin with, but after the patch it seems to be going out of its way to pick targets on the other side of the room/at the other end of the corridor/way over there, instead of cycling to the next guy in the crowd that's beating on me. I'm forced to click-target.



I key-bound my backspace key to "target nearest enemy". Sometimes it, too, targets someone way the hell over in Montana, even though there's someone standing right next to me (a little to the side, not centered) hitting me. It's annoying, and it was doing this to me long before the latest patches.

The MMO "Rift" also has this targetting problem, while it works as desired in "Star Trek Online".

I am guessing sloppy coding.

[Bosstone]

IIRC, the way tab-targeting works is it cycles from left to right across the screen. But since the enemies are constantly moving and you're constantly moving and the camera is constantly moving, tab-targeting is...less than consistent.

[Balance]

I key-bound my backspace key to "target nearest enemy". Sometimes it, too, targets someone way the hell over in Montana, even though there's someone standing right next to me (a little to the side, not centered) hitting me. It's annoying, and it was doing this to me long before the latest patches.

The MMO "Rift" also has this targetting problem, while it works as desired in "Star Trek Online".

I am guessing sloppy coding.
As I understand it, City and Star Trek Online are still using the same engine. I would expect the tab-targeting to work the same way. I keep my "T" key bound to target the nearest enemy (and "Y" to tab through friends, a habit I developed with my empath), and I haven't had any trouble with it. How is your view set up? It could be that the game doesn't think the nearby enemy is in your line of sight for some reason.

[Brainiac4]

One of the first things I do when creating a new alt is bind ` to target_enemy_near, and then I use that to target most of the time - I supplement with tab to swap between enemies in a group, but frequently will go back to closest by hitting `, even when dealing with the same group of enemies. You can also bind keys to target teammates, or enemies by rank. I seem to recall that this is now available in the UI, but if not, /bind is fairly easy to learn and incredibly useful.

http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Bind_load_file_(Slash_Command)

I think the text errors you are spotting are either copy/paste/rewrite problems ("amongst the city" may have started life as "amongst the people of the city" for instance), or slang. I'm a word geek (recovering proofreader and copywriter), and have played since launch, and I have not seen what I would consider evidence of transposition from non-native English speech forms. I certainly see some of that at work; my favorite Indian English thing is "today morning" to refer to what Americans call "this morning".

[Mister Rik]

Okay, so is this "normal"? The mission contact (Doc Delilah in Faultline) accompanied me as an ally on a mission. We got the the elite boss at the end of the instance, where I was defeated. Ran all the way back and ... no Doc Delilah. And I'm all, "Dang, if I can't beat this with help, I sure can't do it by myself."

I think the text errors you are spotting are either copy/paste/rewrite problems ("amongst the city" may have started life as "amongst the people of the city" for instance), or slang. I'm a word geek (recovering proofreader and copywriter), and have played since launch, and I have not seen what I would consider evidence of transposition from non-native English speech forms. I certainly see some of that at work; my favorite Indian English thing is "today morning" to refer to what Americans call "this morning".

The "glimpsing" in place of "looking" actually reminded me of the time way back when I was a shoe salesman, and I approached a Mexican man who was perusing the work boots. I asked if I could help him and he replied, "I am seeing only." I figured out that he meant, "I'm just looking."

[Jophiel]

Doc Deliah may have gotten killed by the mobs. They'll continue fighting for a bit when you're not there.

You can abandon the mission and retake it if you don't think you can pull it off alone and can't get/don't want outside player help.

Castillo can be a real pain with all the shield drones. Load up on defense and accuracy inspirations and maybe a few heals.

[Quimby]

Okay, so is this "normal"? The mission contact (Doc Delilah in Faultline) accompanied me as an ally on a mission. We got the the elite boss at the end of the instance, where I was defeated. Ran all the way back and ... no Doc Delilah. And I'm all, "Dang, if I can't beat this with help, I sure can't do it by myself."


She may have been killed while you were running or sometimes she gets lost on the map in that mission.

[Mister Rik]

or sometimes she gets lost on the map in that mission.
Heh. I've had a few of those "escort this person back to the exit" missions, and learned early on to stop and look behind me frequently to make sure they're still following. That was after one mission where I got to the exit and then discovered I needed to run halfway back through the tunnels because the NPC had gotten hung up on something. Found him running in a corner.

[Balance]

Heh. I've had a few of those "escort this person back to the exit" missions, and learned early on to stop and look behind me frequently to make sure they're still following. That was after one mission where I got to the exit and then discovered I needed to run halfway back through the tunnels because the NPC had gotten hung up on something. Found him running in a corner.
It definitely happens. Escort missions are a lot of people's least favorite type--I almost never take them when running radio/paper missions. (I'll occasionally make an exception if Clive Loveking or Dr. Stephen Fayte come up, just because I think their dialog is funny.)

On the other hand, they beat the hell out of escort missions in most other games I've tried. In other games, the NPC generally doesn't follow you. Instead, you get to follow a useless idiot into a chain of ambushes. Slowly. Even Fusionette is better than that brain-dead hobbit girl in LotRO.

[Der Trihs]

Most of the timers so far have given me way more than enough time, but I don't know if that will always be the case.Almost always there's more than enough time; the one exception I can recall was only 5 minutes (without warning too, right after another mission) in a level 40+ mission and I understand you were supposed to fail that one. My Ill/Rad controller actually pulled it off though.

I'm starting to wonder, though, about the Rogue Isles - is it ever a nice sunny day there?Gloom is the order of the day most places there.

<snip> and last night I spotted a villain's chatter bubble saying something like, "What are you glimpsing at?" That's definitely Praetorian Resistance talk. They talk funny, something many characters complain about in-game.

Heh. I've had a few of those "escort this person back to the exit" missions, and learned early on to stop and look behind me frequently to make sure they're still following. I move the menu bar with the map to the right side of the screen and leave the map open; these days hostages/rescuees show up as small green triangles.

[Onomatopoeia]

Okay, a few new things I noticed after being away from the game for a little more a year that I don't like:

1. In missions where the objective (or one of the objectives) is to click on a glowie, a white splotch now tells you exactly where on the map the final glowie is.

2. In every kill-all mission, you now know exactly where on the map the final mob is and the number of adversaries left to defeat.

3. In escort missions, the NPC now has its own, slightly smaller version of the player map icon

This is an obvious dumbing-down of the game. My question is why?

Were players complaining about not being able to find a glowie? They make a sound, for goodness' sake; You know you're close when you hear it. Were players threatening to quit because they were frustrated with not being able to locate that last mob? Searching for the final mob in a kill-all was part of the fun of the mission.

??

[Jophiel]

Hunting for the last glowie or mob (especially on the large outdoor maps) wasn't considered fun by a lot of people. Personally, I never found entertainment in combing a city map for the fifth item hidden behind a dumpster in an alley or half-embedded in a wall.

That's not "dumbing down" as there's no challenge in combing every last inch of a map. It's just a waste of my time to spend fifteen minutes running around. Even on smaller indoor maps, it's not a challenge, it's just a slightly less annoying waste of time.

[Der Trihs]

It also makes glitches easier to identify, like when the target has spawned inside a wall or fallen outside the map.

[Mister Rik]

On the other hand, they beat the hell out of escort missions in most other games I've tried. In other games, the NPC generally doesn't follow you. Instead, you get to follow a useless idiot into a chain of ambushes. Slowly. Even Fusionette is better than that brain-dead hobbit girl in LotRO.
Hello, WoW :p I remember an escort mission there that I could never successfully complete on anything but a paladin with the plate armor + heals. The ambush you walked into had just too many enemies, most of them ranged and spread out so that you couldn't even get to them all before they whittled you down. This was at a low enough level that most classes didn't have AoE attacks yet. Thankfully, that was a quest that went bye-bye when they revamped the Old World.

Speaking of Fusionette, I just looked again at a screenshot I took of the mission with her where you end up temporarily allying with an Arachnos Arbiter. Looking more closely at that screenshot, the Arachnos guy appears to be an Elvis impersonator.

That's definitely Praetorian Resistance talk. They talk funny, something many characters complain about in-game.
I just ran the mission in question again on another character and spotted the actual dialogue, which I got wrong:

1st Resistance Guy: What are we glimpsing for?
2nd Resistance Guy: Blueberries.

ETA: D'oh! Just realized Blueberries = cops. The ones you're down there to rescue.

Hunting for the last glowie or mob (especially on the large outdoor maps) wasn't considered fun by a lot of people. Personally, I never found entertainment in combing a city map for the fifth item hidden behind a dumpster in an alley or half-embedded in a wall.

That's not "dumbing down" as there's no challenge in combing every last inch of a map. It's just a waste of my time to spend fifteen minutes running around. Even on smaller indoor maps, it's not a challenge, it's just a slightly less annoying waste of time.
Especially when that last enemy/glowy you missed is way back on the first floor of a 4-floor map.

And speaking of 4-floor maps, I see what some of you were saying about impossible architecture. In Faultline I entered, at ground level, what was clearly a 2-story building. Then I took elevators to the 4th floor.

[Tom Scud]

Well, the Son of Santa has now acquired some more toys to go with his caltrops, and I have to say the acid mortar really makes that character 3 times as fun to play for some reason. And the shield drone is just cool.

[Bosstone]

Okay, a few new things I noticed after being away from the game for a little more a year that I don't like:Do...

Do you know how many hours people wasted going through a nearly-empty map looking for one last hidden mob in outdoor kill-alls? Looking for a glowie tucked away somewhere in Oranbega? How many GM tickets had to be opened else they would lose an entire night to one stupid mission?

Frustration isn't challenge.

Oh, and by the way:Were players complaining about not being able to find a glowie? They make a sound, for goodness' sake; You know you're close when you hear it.What the hell were deaf players supposed to do? I'm not even mentioning all the players who choose to play with game sounds off, since I know you'll just say that's a choice.

[Quimby]

Personally I love that "Point to the last one" feature too. I see where you're coming from but as someone who has been frustrated for way too long to just finish a mission at times, I am all for it.

[Onomatopoeia]

Okay, I see the consensus is you guys all like having the final objective given to you. I think it was an unnecessary "improvement", but I'm a casual player who'll be on, maybe, 5 hours a month, and searching for the final mob was, for me, part of the fun. I'm sure in a couple of months I won't care less one way or the other but, for now, missions just seem a little less challenging to me because of this change.

I finally found my way to Praetoria for the first time. Is Pocket D the only way to get there? Beautiful place, but no one's there; no players that is. I see that the redesign of City Hall in Atlas Park was influenced by the buildings in the Praetorian zones. I like that there are no visible walls between the 3 main Praetorian zones.

Some older costume pieces are no longer available. I went to the tailor to make a minor change to one of my characters and the bottom half of his attire was completely different in the editor. I searched for his old pants, which had an upper and lower portion that I'd applied different designs to, but they weren't there. In fact, I no longer see selections for upper pant and lower pant. I knew the game designers added costume pieces from time to time, but I had no idea they also removed some. Another of my character's tops is unavailable and since I, for the most part, like the way he looks, and couldn't make a minor change without him ending up attired completely differently, I canceled out of the editor. Looks like he'll be stuck with his current costumes forever. :)

I finally got through the 4 initial incarnate missions in Ouroboros (sp?) on one of my 50s to open my alpha slot. I understand that collecting shards, through various missions, and converting the shards and slotting the result will provide enhanced abilities to certain powers. What I don't know (yet) is how to enable anything after alpha.

[Mister Rik]

As a new player coming from WoW, without those mob markers, I would have been horribly confused by a few missions early on. There are two "standards" of instance behavior in CoH that you don't see in WoW:

• Exit button at the end so you don't have to run all the way back

• Enemies spawning in previously-cleared areas.

From playing WoW I'm accustomed, when I enter an instance or (since I'm a mostly-solo player) any cave-like area, to clearing everything on my way in so that I don't have to bother with it on my way back out. So in CoH, when I killed the boss/found the last object at the very end of the map and the mission info at the top of the screen told me that guards/reinforcements/whatever had arrived and I needed to defeat them, I ended up standing around near where I had defeated the boss expecting these new enemies to come charging into the room. Because that very thing had happened on previous missions. So I stood around ... and stood around ... and started to think something had glitched. It wasn't until I happened to open the map and spotted the enemy markers "way over there" that I realized I needed to run back through previously-explored/cleared areas.

[Lute Skywatcher]

I finally found my way to Praetoria for the first time. Is Pocket D the only way to get there? There's a portal on Talos. Behind the arena, IIRC.

[Mister Rik]

Oops, my second bullet point up there should have read "• New enemies spawning in previously-cleared areas." Obviously, in WoW, if you're in a non-instanced cave or building, the same mobs you killed on the way in can respawn if you take long enough to get back. I meant to refer to new, mission-objective enemies spawning way back in previously-cleared areas, which doesn't happen at all in WoW.


Anyway... more Going Rogue questions:

• I keep coming across "Captured PPD" officers who are kneeling with their hands behind their heads in front of some criminal (usually a Destroyers gang member). Why are these PPD hostile to me? Are they not really PPD, but rather gang members disguised as cops, acting as decoys to lure unsuspecting heroes (or other PPD) into a 2-on-1 fight? Maybe there's a mission I haven't come across that explains this.

• I'm also puzzled as to why my Resistance character, who is level 10 now and has been doing plenty of Resistance missions, keeps running into Resistance mobs that are hostile. Basically, any Resistance mob who isn't a Contact is hostile.

[Lute Skywatcher]

There's a portal on Talos. Behind the arena, IIRC. Red Side portal is in Cap au Diable.

[Bosstone]

• I'm also puzzled as to why my Resistance character, who is level 10 now and has been doing plenty of Resistance missions, keeps running into Resistance mobs that are hostile. Basically, any Resistance mob who isn't a Contact is hostile.Strictly speaking, you're working undercover. Your contacts know who you are, but the general Resistance grunts think you're just another Powers Division jerk working for Cole. IIRC, the story arc text occasionally makes some mention of that, saying stuff like "You'll have to stay undercover for now" or "Yes, you're going to have to beat up some of our guys, but that's the price we've got to pay." I'm paraphrasing heavily, but it does come up.

[Brainiac4]

Strictly speaking, you're working undercover. Your contacts know who you are, but the general Resistance grunts think you're just another Powers Division jerk working for Cole. IIRC, the story arc text occasionally makes some mention of that, saying stuff like "You'll have to stay undercover for now" or "Yes, you're going to have to beat up some of our guys, but that's the price we've got to pay." I'm paraphrasing heavily, but it does come up.

And it's true no matter which side you choose. You have both Resistance and Loyalist contacts, and both sides will treat you like a friend or an enemy depending on the mission and potentially your actions in it.

The mobs on the streets are enemies regardless of faction for pretty much the same reason, plus it makes for more guys to fight and thus more xp.

[Der Trihs]

• I keep coming across "Captured PPD" officers who are kneeling with their hands behind their heads in front of some criminal (usually a Destroyers gang member). Why are these PPD hostile to me? Are they not really PPD, but rather gang members disguised as cops, acting as decoys to lure unsuspecting heroes (or other PPD) into a 2-on-1 fight? Maybe there's a mission I haven't come across that explains this.

Strictly speaking, you're working undercover. Your contacts know who you are, but the general Resistance grunts think you're just another Powers Division jerk working for Cole. IIRC, the story arc text occasionally makes some mention of that, saying stuff like "You'll have to stay undercover for now" or "Yes, you're going to have to beat up some of our guys, but that's the price we've got to pay." I'm paraphrasing heavily, but it does come up.Also, you may have noticed that PPD and Clockwork on the surface typically have a yellow (neutral) reticule if you click on them, while Underground they are red (enemy). Occasionally you'll hear PPD Underground comment about how "everything down here is Resistance or a sympathizer!"

I finally got through the 4 initial incarnate missions in Ouroboros (sp?) on one of my 50s to open my alpha slot. I understand that collecting shards, through various missions, and converting the shards and slotting the result will provide enhanced abilities to certain powers. What I don't know (yet) is how to enable anything after alpha.
You do the Incarnate Trials - the BAF and Lambda trials occur fairly often. You gain Incarnate Experience to unlock the slots, and special salvage to craft powers for them.

[Mister Rik]

Also, you may have noticed that PPD and Clockwork on the surface typically have a yellow (neutral) reticule if you click on them, while Underground they are red (enemy). Occasionally you'll hear PPD Underground comment about how "everything down here is Resistance or a sympathizer!"
But these "Captured PPD" are above-ground, right out in the open...

[Balance]

But these "Captured PPD" are above-ground, right out in the open...
There's also a running feud between the Powers Division and the PPD cops. Marauder/Praetor White is an arrogant bugger, and so are most of his minions, so it's understandable that some of them would want to take a poke at you, even if they don't think you're with the Resistance.

Admittedly, though, doing so when you've just tried to help them out is rather silly. It may be that the game is spawning the wrong mob for the captured PPD--it may be supposed to spawn the neutral guys, and be fetching the hostile ones instead. You could file a bug report on it.

[Mister Rik]

Okay, this is starting to honk me off. What is the deal with missions in Praetoria being front-loaded with Lieutenants a level higher than my character? I've got one Loyalist character that is running into this over and over again. She's level 11, walks in the front door of the mission location, and is warmly greeted by some level 12 "Resistance Heavy Barrel" who proceeds to kick her ass seven ways to Sunday. And then I can't even get past the first room because every minion is paired up with another one of these guys.

And to top it off, the "Abandon" button is disabled again. I'm can't make heads or tails over when and why I become incapable of abandoning a mission. I want to reset my combat parameters to fight enemies -1 my level, figuring that might actually get me enemies my own level to fight, but if I can't abandon the mission those same level 12s are just going to still be there.

[Jophiel]

The Resistance/Loyalist attacking their own thing is just nonsensical and, while you can fanwank it to some degree, it's best not to think about it too much. The same goofiness occurs in the Rogue Isle with Arachnos. Cole can send mental spies patrolling the streets to suppress disloyal thoughts and has Clockwork eyes throughout the entire city but he can't stop his rank-and-file cops from busting into open warfare in the streets with his elite "Powers Divisions" agents?

Mister Rik, I don't know why you can't abandon the mission but sometimes they do that when one mission feeds directly into the next. I would load up on inspirations to break through the first part or seek help. I believe three purples (defense) is enough to soft-cap about anyone where only 5% of attacks will hit you.

[Quimby]

Okay, this is starting to honk me off. What is the deal with missions in Praetoria being front-loaded with Lieutenants a level higher than my character? I've got one Loyalist character that is running into this over and over again. She's level 11, walks in the front door of the mission location, and is warmly greeted by some level 12 "Resistance Heavy Barrel" who proceeds to kick her ass seven ways to Sunday. And then I can't even get past the first room because every minion is paired up with another one of these guys.

And to top it off, the "Abandon" button is disabled again. I'm can't make heads or tails over when and why I become incapable of abandoning a mission. I want to reset my combat parameters to fight enemies -1 my level, figuring that might actually get me enemies my own level to fight, but if I can't abandon the mission those same level 12s are just going to still be there.

I am not sure why you don't have the option to abandon the mission but you can log the character off, that will effectively abandon it.

FWIW, I don't remember where I read it but I do know they are going to weaken Praetorian mobs in an upcoming patch (again).

[Tom Scud]

So. Frostfire. Should I just beg in /help for help or what?

[Jophiel]

Begging for help with Frostfire will probably be effective since people still have fond memories of taking him down and a new player doing legacy Hollows content is more warmly received than a new player begging for AE farms.

Again, I can't stress enough the value of loading up on inspirations for tough fights. Especially defense inspirations. You can buy them for 50 inf at any AE building, at hospitals or else from contacts you've done a mission or two for. A couple purples will make you close to invulnerable and a few yellows will seriously increase your ability to hit higher level mobs. You can do reds but I'd rather fill the slots with more purples in case the first batch wear off before you're done. I wouldn't bother much with oranges; the resist inspirations are pretty weak.

Kind of off track but along the same lines, here's something to try. As you get inspirations, fill almost all of your slots with what you want to keep for tough spots: a couple purples, a couple greens, maybe a yellow or two or a rez... but leave one slot free. Now, as you go through a mission, each time you get an inspiration drop in that slot, use it immediately. Obviously this doesn't work for Break Frees and Rezes but you can either delete them or use a different slot. Inspirations drop often enough that you'll go through most of the mission with something boosted, be it your defense, damage, accuracy or resists. It can make a pretty noticeable difference and, even if you don't think it does, inspirations drop so often you have nothing to lose.

[Lute Skywatcher]

Don't forget that three inspirations of the same type & level can be combined to form a different inspiration of the same level.

[Quimby]

So. Frostfire. Should I just beg in /help for help or what?

Frostfire! He is the first really tough fight a soloist will come across. I remember I must have died a dozen times before I beat him with my first character, a blaster (and back then you ended up in the Atlas Park Hospital when you died, yeesh). That was also my first "MMO's are different from regular games" lesson when I quit and went back the next day and realized I had to do the entire mission from scratch. Seems obvious now but I was new to MMOs then. Some suggestions:

1. As someone else wrote: get purples. Buy at least three purples from the Nurse and just before the final fight eat them.You will hardly take any hits with them active. Learning the value of purples is like an epiphany in this game.

2. If you have any kind of ranged attack, try to peel off the minions that are furthest from FF and lead them into the hall and kill them a few at a time. At the very least you should have your Origin attack which is enough to get someone's attention.

3. When you do engage FF, don't waste any attacks on the Fire Imps he summons. They will despawn when you kill him.

Good luck!

[Brainiac4]

Okay, this is starting to honk me off. What is the deal with missions in Praetoria being front-loaded with Lieutenants a level higher than my character? I've got one Loyalist character that is running into this over and over again. She's level 11, walks in the front door of the mission location, and is warmly greeted by some level 12 "Resistance Heavy Barrel" who proceeds to kick her ass seven ways to Sunday. And then I can't even get past the first room because every minion is paired up with another one of these guys.

And to top it off, the "Abandon" button is disabled again. I'm can't make heads or tails over when and why I become incapable of abandoning a mission. I want to reset my combat parameters to fight enemies -1 my level, figuring that might actually get me enemies my own level to fight, but if I can't abandon the mission those same level 12s are just going to still be there.

There are three kinds of"abandon".

1. Actually give up the mission; I pretty much never do this, but I recall it being an option.

2. Talk to the contact who gave you a mission and automatically complete it; you can only do this once per 24 hours (I think, been a while since I did this).

3. "Abandon a mission in progress" simply by switching your active mission to a different one; you'll get a warning that you will lose progress on the currently-active mission and need to click OK. This is handy for resetting missions when team size changes, as well as for resetting them when you change difficulty. As noted above, logging the character off will also reset mission state.

If these are not available to you (and you're not dealing with the time limit imposed for choice #2), file a bug report. The switch to Freedom has introduced a variety of bugs and decreased stability overall.

[Balance]

Again, I can't stress enough the value of loading up on inspirations for tough fights. Especially defense inspirations. You can buy them for 50 inf at any AE building, at hospitals or else from contacts you've done a mission or two for. A couple purples will make you close to invulnerable and a few yellows will seriously increase your ability to hit higher level mobs. You can do reds but I'd rather fill the slots with more purples in case the first batch wear off before you're done. I wouldn't bother much with oranges; the resist inspirations are pretty weak.
Exactly. People who come to City from other games often seem to underestimate the power of buffs/debuffs, including--maybe especially--inspirations. Even the small ones are cheap, readily available game changers. I agree that purples are the best bang for you buck; three small purples gives you defenses approaching those of a high-level Super Reflexes scrapper, on top of whatever you already have. The math behind this is available at Paragonwiki (http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Attack_Mechanics), if anyone wants details, but the key is that mobs have a base 50% chance to hit you, and your defense stat (which purples add directly to) is subtracted directly from that base before any other modifiers. So, a small purple, which is worth 12.5% Defense, actually reduces the damage you take by 25% on average, and they stack.

The downside to Defense is that a bad run with the random number generator can still kill you. With a high enough Defense, though, it would have to do the equivalent of rolling several natural 20s in a row.

For Frostfire, specifically--

In addition to purples, you probably want at least a couple of Break Frees, because he's a controller. Don't pop them preemptively, though--hang onto them in case he mezzes you when you need to move.

Which brings us to the second tip for Frosty: Run away.

Seriously. He won't chase you very far. You can take some shots at him, hurt him as much as you can, and when you start taking too much damage, run. Once you're sure he's not following you, use Rest to recuperate, then go back for another round. He will have regenerated some of the damage, but hopefully not so much that you can't whittle him down.

[Mister Rik]

Mister Rik, I don't know why you can't abandon the mission but sometimes they do that when one mission feeds directly into the next.
My idea was to abandon it, reset my combat parameters, and then re-obtain the mission. I had a weird problem on another character with an AE mission that I couldn't quit too - the "Quit" button wasn't appearing in the AE window, and the "Abandon" button was disabled in the Mission window. I finally had to click on "Team" and then "Quit Task Force".

I would load up on inspirations to break through the first part or seek help. I believe three purples (defense) is enough to soft-cap about anyone where only 5% of attacks will hit you.
Ooo, I didn't realize you could stack those things! Thanks for the tip!

I am not sure why you don't have the option to abandon the mission but you can log the character off, that will effectively abandon it.
That's what I was hoping for when I logged that character out and went to bed. Hopefully when I try again the enemies will be adjusted according to the "-1" I selected.

FWIW, I don't remember where I read it but I do know they are going to weaken Praetorian mobs in an upcoming patch (again).
Well, for me it's not so much that they need to be nerfed. This level 11 character can handle a level 11 Lieutenant just fine. It's the level 12 Lieutenants that are giving her problems, and they keep showing up in large numbers in missions that are clearly labeled "Level 11". What's odd is I'm only having this issue with this one character. None of my "Hero" characters have run into this, nor have my similar-level Villain and Resistance characters. Just this one Loyalist.

Kind of off track but along the same lines, here's something to try. As you get inspirations, fill almost all of your slots with what you want to keep for tough spots: a couple purples, a couple greens, maybe a yellow or two or a rez... but leave one slot free. Now, as you go through a mission, each time you get an inspiration drop in that slot, use it immediately.
Heh. I've resorted to just buying all my inspirations from vendors, because I seem to be some kind of magnet for those blue "Breath of Air" (or whatever they're called) ones. I get piles and piles of them. Why, I don't know. Running out of Endurance is not a problem I'm having in any way, shape or form, at least at these lower levels. Yet those things drop like candy.


I really starting to enjoy playing my main villain. The redside storyline & missions have a sense of humor to them that is lacking on the blueside :p

Regarding the "frustration =/= challenge (or fun)" concept Bosstone has mentioned, I ended up sending a polite suggestion on that topic to the author of an AE story I gave up on last night. The description of the story warned that some enemies might have custom power sets, and I think I met those enemies in the second mission of the story. I was on my "main", who is level 21 and is fully loaded with level 24 DO enhancements, and doesn't have much trouble fighting enemies at her level. She's even taken down a few "Boss" enemies solo. But I got into the second mission of this story (and it was an interesting story, no complaints there), and suddenly every enemy I encountered had the ability to deflect my attacks. As a result, she was getting her butt kicked over and over by mere Minions, not because they were hitting hard, but because she just couldn't hit them with much of anything. So they weren't going down fast enough, which meant they got to hit her many more times than would normally be expected. Even though she survived the fights against these groups of three Minions, her hitpoints were so depleted that she had to stand around for a few minutes after every single fight to let her health regenerate. And that's just boring, so I dropped the mission.

[Bosstone]

Praetoria was sort of mishandled in that it's the first area in a very long time that was created for levels 1-20. The vast majority of new content that got added to the game before Going Rogue was for levels 30-50.

As a result, the team that created the Praetorian enemies were used to creating high-level enemies that would steamroll you if you didn't at least have SOs and high-level defenses. They did try to tone the enemies back, but they didn't go far enough. If you compare Praetoria enemies with enemies of similar level from Paragon City or the Rogue Isles, Praetoria is simply evil.

This is exceptionally ironic when you consider that Going Rogue was originally designed as the new new player experience, and for a while there you had to start in Praetoria and could only make a heroside or villainside character after your Praetorian got to level 20.

Heh. I've resorted to just buying all my inspirations from vendors, because I seem to be some kind of magnet for those blue "Breath of Air" (or whatever they're called) ones. I get piles and piles of them. Why, I don't know. Running out of Endurance is not a problem I'm having in any way, shape or form, at least at these lower levels. Yet those things drop like candy.If you have three of an unwanted inspiration, you can right-click one of them, select 'Combine 3 into...' and choose an inspiration you do want. It frees up some inspiration slots and gets you a useful insp.

You definitely want to get into the habit of using inspirations. Like any consumable, the temptation is to save them until an emergency, but you soon get to where you just don't use them at all, and they drop so frequently that thinking them as rare things to be hoarded is not at all useful. The more you use insps, the faster you mow through enemies, and the faster insps drop. You're almost never wanting for inspirations except in protracted boss battles.

One of the marks of a scrub is someone who dies with a full inspiration tray, and it's obvious when that happens because a teammate will try to hand them an Awaken and won't be able to.

[Balance]

Regarding the "frustration =/= challenge (or fun)" concept Bosstone has mentioned, I ended up sending a polite suggestion on that topic to the author of an AE story I gave up on last night. The description of the story warned that some enemies might have custom power sets, and I think I met those enemies in the second mission of the story.
Custom AE mobs are generally tougher than regular mobs, unless some munchkin is trying to build a farm. They tend to have more powers, and often have powers you don't see many standard mobs using. I once built an incredibly rude mission full of Storm mobs on a set of floating islands; they were all stealthed with Steamy Mist and had a -Fly power as well as lots of knockback...on the one map I've ever found that could actually kill you with falling damage. It actually killed me on my first test run, and I knew what was in there.

[Sailboat]

Well, for me it's not so much that they need to be nerfed. This level 11 character can handle a level 11 Lieutenant just fine. It's the level 12 Lieutenants that are giving her problems, and they keep showing up in large numbers in missions that are clearly labeled "Level 11". What's odd is I'm only having this issue with this one character. None of my "Hero" characters have run into this, nor have my similar-level Villain and Resistance characters. Just this one Loyalist.

I think it's normal to encounter some even-level and some +1 enemies in an even-level mission. Maybe it's different solo, but I don't remember that. I'm never surprised to see +1s here and there. I think it's intentional, to keep things from being too predictable.

[Lok]

As far as crafting, I'm thinking I may be better off just waiting until a higher level before I bother with it? Some (all?) of the yellow level 20 recipes require an expenditure of 32k Inf, which at this point (level 19) is a huge chunk of my Influence. I don't want to spend that and then discover I can't recoup it when I sell it, so I've only used it for inventions I'm going to use for myself.


One way to make money, set your search on the AH UI for level 50, then go into the recipe section, under the set IOs. Place bids for 100 or 200 Inf on some of the rare (orange) recipes from the sets. Then sell them to vendors for 10,000 inf each.(It is also possible to buy them cheap, then sell them on the AH for a lot, but that depends on luck, patience, and knowledge of what does and doesn't sell.) You can start by bidding on just one at low level, then increasing the number you bid on as you sell the early purchases. Soon you regularly spend 1,000 Inf to get 100,000. I usually do this right before I log off, when I get back to the character, they usually have a stack of stuff to sell of.

I have no idea how it breaks down now with the cash shop but the Science costume booster used to allow you to access special tailors ("surgeons") where you could change your body sliders or even select a new body type (m/f/huge).

I assume the ability is now sold as a stand alone or something.

Yes, it is the Super Tailor access on the Market, for 800 points. You can find a complete listing of everything on the market at this player ran database (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AuHa1r9WGuc5dENzeV84dFVmLTNNQjNYVHVSRVRvX1E&hl#gid=0).

Heh. I've had a few of those "escort this person back to the exit" missions, and learned early on to stop and look behind me frequently to make sure they're still following. That was after one mission where I got to the exit and then discovered I needed to run halfway back through the tunnels because the NPC had gotten hung up on something. Found him running in a corner.

Some people complain about escort missions a lot. I don't have much problem with them. I just head back to the entrance with my map open, watching the indicator for the NPC I am escorting. If I start to pull away, I stop for a second.

Okay, a few new things I noticed after being away from the game for a little more a year that I don't like:

1. In missions where the objective (or one of the objectives) is to click on a glowie, a white splotch now tells you exactly where on the map the final glowie is.

2. In every kill-all mission, you now know exactly where on the map the final mob is and the number of adversaries left to defeat.

3. In escort missions, the NPC now has its own, slightly smaller version of the player map icon

This is an obvious dumbing-down of the game. My question is why?

Were players complaining about not being able to find a glowie? They make a sound, for goodness' sake; You know you're close when you hear it. Were players threatening to quit because they were frustrated with not being able to locate that last mob? Searching for the final mob in a kill-all was part of the fun of the mission.

??

If you really don't like that stuff being there, I believe you can turn it off in your Map Options at the bottom of the map window. Or you could just close your map.

Mister Rik, AE missions are all set up as Task Forces. The only way to quite them in the middle is by opening the team window and quitting the TF.

[Mister Rik]

Some people complain about escort missions a lot. I don't have much problem with them. I just head back to the entrance with my map open, watching the indicator for the NPC I am escorting. If I start to pull away, I stop for a second.
Wouldn't work for me. I've got my map window stretched to full-screen. Is it possible to set up two separate map windows? It would be cool if I could have a "permanent" mini-map in the corner and then the full-screen map I can bring up with "M". But with only one map available to me, I gotta have the big one.

And speaking of maps, I've discovered one mission type I really don't care for: big, wide-open outdoor maps with the objective, "find the McGuffin". There seems to be at least one of these in most of the longer AE stories I've done, and now I've encountered a couple "regular storyline" missions like that. My villain, Bruised Violet, got a mission from The Radio to steal some drugs and a list of dropoff points, and then go to Paragon City to make the drops and take the money for herself. She ended up in a section of the city hunting for glowies. I was thinking that, if there was ever a case for marking every objective on a map, that was it. She has the list of locations in her hands, and logically, that should translate to the locations being marked.

OTOH, she got her first Mayhem mission yesterday, and I've got to say that was more fun, if easier, than the Safeguard missions my main hero has gotten. Largely because it pointed me right to the bank, something the Safeguard missions haven't done. It was also kind of fun running around slapping civilians :D

Mister Rik, AE missions are all set up as Task Forces. The only way to quite them in the middle is by opening the team window and quitting the TF.
I know it always asks me if I really want to quit my TF, but every other AE mission I've quit in the middle has had a big "Quit Story" button in the middle of the window that comes up when I click the "Architect Options" button at the top of my screen. Click that button, and then it asks if I want to quit my TF. I'd never needed to open the Team window before. This particular story, that "Quit Story" button wasn't there.

[Bosstone]

Wouldn't work for me. I've got my map window stretched to full-screen. Is it possible to set up two separate map windows? It would be cool if I could have a "permanent" mini-map in the corner and then the full-screen map I can bring up with "M". But with only one map available to me, I gotta have the big one....buh.

The minimap in the corner IS the one you can bring up with M. I've never really been in a situation in City where I had to have it out to full-screen, though I do admittedly play at a high resolution.

[Lok]

Wouldn't work for me. I've got my map window stretched to full-screen. Is it possible to set up two separate map windows? It would be cool if I could have a "permanent" mini-map in the corner and then the full-screen map I can bring up with "M". But with only one map available to me, I gotta have the big one.

And speaking of maps, I've discovered one mission type I really don't care for: big, wide-open outdoor maps with the objective, "find the McGuffin". There seems to be at least one of these in most of the longer AE stories I've done, and now I've encountered a couple "regular storyline" missions like that. My villain, Bruised Violet, got a mission from The Radio to steal some drugs and a list of dropoff points, and then go to Paragon City to make the drops and take the money for herself. She ended up in a section of the city hunting for glowies. I was thinking that, if there was ever a case for marking every objective on a map, that was it. She has the list of locations in her hands, and logically, that should translate to the locations being marked.

OTOH, she got her first Mayhem mission yesterday, and I've got to say that was more fun, if easier, than the Safeguard missions my main hero has gotten. Largely because it pointed me right to the bank, something the Safeguard missions haven't done. It was also kind of fun running around slapping civilians :D

I know it always asks me if I really want to quit my TF, but every other AE mission I've quit in the middle has had a big "Quit Story" button in the middle of the window that comes up when I click the "Architect Options" button at the top of my screen. Click that button, and then it asks if I want to quit my TF. I'd never needed to open the Team window before. This particular story, that "Quit Story" button wasn't there.

You cover your entire screen with your map? Really? I've never needed to see anything on it the close up so I just leave it small. Just zooming in has handled everything if I really wanted to see close up. And it lets me have the map open on TFs/Trials when I am checking on the rest of my team.

The big out side hunts can be a pain. The good news is, you can learn pretty quickly where to find most of the stuff in the regular missions. There just aren't that many spawn points for objects in the outside maps. The bad news for AE authors is you can't control where stuff spawns at all on those maps. The general controls you have on regular maps (which can be a hassle to use themselves) don't work at all on outside maps.

I find Mayhem missions more fun than Safeguards because I get to break stuff as I go. It can be especially fun on an MM, just set the minions on Aggressive and let them wreak havoc. :D

[Mister Rik]

...buh.

The minimap in the corner IS the one you can bring up with M.
Yeah, I knew that. What I meant was "is there a way to set up two instances of the map, one permanently visible and one I can call up as needed".

I've never really been in a situation in City where I had to have it out to full-screen, though I do admittedly play at a high resolution.

You cover your entire screen with your map? Really? I've never needed to see anything on it the close up so I just leave it small. Just zooming in has handled everything if I really wanted to see close up.

Blame my age and eyes. With the map in a small box at the top of my screen, if I zoom out so the whole map fits in the box the details get lost. On indoor maps, that means I can't distinguish where doorways and side passages and such are, but if I zoom in then I can't see where the passages lead and I keep running down dead-end corridors or into areas I already cleared. On outdoor maps, at least the main city zone maps, I have a hard time when the various contact/location markers get all bunched up and go scooting around when I mouse over them. I had a heck of a time trying to click on Blue Steel's marker when Ms. Liberty sent me to talk to him because I hadn't figured out yet how to zoom in; there was Blue Steel's marker, a separate mission-objective marker, and several vendors near him, and when I point my mouse in there to target him after I got off the monorail, all those markers went scooting out from under my mouse. Basically, I like being able to see the "big picture". It's easy enough to just call up the map as needed and then dismiss it when I'm done.

[Arrogance Ex Machina]

Been playing this a lot lately, first out of nostalgia since I played CoH for several months before WoW launched, then just because it's a lot of fun. Was trying to upgrade to VIP after I decided I could waste a month or two playing this, but it seems NCSoft doesn't want my money - they reject both my Paypal and my card, both of which work just fine anywhere else (Amazon, Steam etc). Annoys me to no end, it does. :(

[Lok]

Been playing this a lot lately, first out of nostalgia since I played CoH for several months before WoW launched, then just because it's a lot of fun. Was trying to upgrade to VIP after I decided I could waste a month or two playing this, but it seems NCSoft doesn't want my money - they reject both my Paypal and my card, both of which work just fine anywhere else (Amazon, Steam etc). Annoys me to no end, it does. :(

Yeah, they have some issues with overseas transactions. In the US, the perform a $0.00 transaction to make sure the account is real for fraud protection. And in Europe, a $0.00 transaction is sometimes seen as the prelude to a fraud attempt. People do manage to get stuff through, but I am not sure how. Checking with NCSoft CS is your best bet unfortunately.

[Brainiac4]

Regarding +1 mobs in missions - in AE, you can choose between options for level distribution within a mission. It's been a while, so I don't recall precisely, but I think it's something like:
- even throughout
- hard beginning (i.e., +1 minions to start)
- hard end (i.e., +1 minions to finish)

The idea being that this is more interesting. I usually like seeing the groups of +1 minions when soloing; they're worth more XP and not that much harder to defeat. The key is to know your attack chain and how you control the situation. Be willing to run away if things go pear-shaped.

[Lok]

Regarding +1 mobs in missions - in AE, you can choose between options for level distribution within a mission. It's been a while, so I don't recall precisely, but I think it's something like:
- even throughout
- hard beginning (i.e., +1 minions to start)
- hard end (i.e., +1 minions to finish)

The idea being that this is more interesting. I usually like seeing the groups of +1 minions when soloing; they're worth more XP and not that much harder to defeat. The key is to know your attack chain and how you control the situation. Be willing to run away if things go pear-shaped.

The system in the AE is the same one in the regular missions. Even level is just that to you, Ramping up is -2 levels up to +1 from the beginning, Ramping down starts at +1 and goes down to -2 at the end. But all of them have a variable +1 for any individual spawn, which can cause some real problems. And they are affected by your mission difficulty settings. If you have -1 level selected, you will be fighting greys at some point on either of the ramping choices.

[mlees]

As I understand it, City and Star Trek Online are still using the same engine. I would expect the tab-targeting to work the same way. I keep my "T" key bound to target the nearest enemy (and "Y" to tab through friends, a habit I developed with my empath), and I haven't had any trouble with it. How is your view set up? It could be that the game doesn't think the nearby enemy is in your line of sight for some reason.

I don't understand the question. As far as I know, my "view" is default.

I use the arrow keys next to my number pad for forward, back, and strafe movements with my left hand. I use the mouse (in my right hand) to click on the action bar, and to change character facing (right mouse button). I move my left hand to smack the backspace key for "target nearest".

[Balance]

I don't understand the question. As far as I know, my "view" is default.
The distinction I'm talking about is first-person view versus a view from behind the character. You can adjust this with the scrollwheel. If you're in first-person or close third-person, the game may not think the critter you're trying to target is in your field of view. You could try backing out to a more distant view to see if it makes a difference with your targeting.

[Mister Rik]

Is there a way to set up my camera control to work similarly to the way it works in WoW when moving? Specifically, use my right mouse button to steer my character (both games work this way), but use my left mouse button to change my camera angle without affecting my character's facing/direction of travel (WoW works this way by default, but so far I don't see how to do it in CoH)?

The thing is, when I'm flying, I don't like the camera to be almost directly behind my character as it is by default. I like it to be behind and above, at about a 45° angle (or maybe a bit steeper) so that I can see the ground in front of my character. That's just more "comfortable" for me. Same thing with ground travel — I like to be looking down at a slightly steeper angle than the default. It's also nice to be able to look behind my character, or to one side or the other, without having to stop and turn my character around.

I see how to rotate the camera by holding down a key (Page Up by default), but it would be nice if I could do it without holding down a key. I guess what I'm looking for is a way to separate "mouse look" from "mouse steering". Though I guess one problem is the fact that CoH uses <Left click> to interact with objects/NPCs, where WoW uses <Right click>. I guess I'm just used to being able to adjust my camera angle on the fly, at will.

[Bosstone]

One: You can rotate the camera by holding the middle mouse button or scroll wheel, provided you have one. If you don't, I'm not sure. I'm fairly sure I mentioned that earlier in this thread.

Two: Unfortunately, the camera when flying is borked. While you can rotate it around your character horizontally, you cannot move it above or below; even when moving the camera, your pitch changes to keep the camera directly lined up with your body. I hate the behavior, but it's always been like that.

[Lute Skywatcher]

You can rotate the camera by holding the middle mouse button or scroll wheel, provided you have one. If you don't, I'm not sure. Page Up/Page Down in conjuction with movmeent keys will do the same thing.

[Tom Scud]

Thanks for the Frostfire advice. I was able to take him out pretty easily with 3 shields up. (Helped that I was also level 12 by then, but anyway...)

[mlees]

The distinction I'm talking about is first-person view versus a view from behind the character. You can adjust this with the scrollwheel. If you're in first-person or close third-person, the game may not think the critter you're trying to target is in your field of view. You could try backing out to a more distant view to see if it makes a difference with your targeting.

All right, thanks. I usually have "close" third person. (And when your fighting indoors, sometimes the camera is really close due to walls, etc.)

I'll give your idea a shot.

[Sailboat]

It is possible to pitch the camera (and the flight direction) downward to scan the ground in front of you, while holding the "climb" button down (spacebar, I think) to counteract the dive a bit. it won't be perfect; you'll tend to rise, release the climb button, dive toward the ground again, and have to fiddle with the climb button repeatedly, but it can be done. I usually find it too irritating to do for long.

The ability to look down while flying level is one of the first questions I asked when I started playing. If anyone figures out a real way to do it, you can have a virtual chocolate-chip cookie.

[Mister Rik]

It is possible to pitch the camera (and the flight direction) downward to scan the ground in front of you, while holding the "climb" button down (spacebar, I think) to counteract the dive a bit. it won't be perfect; you'll tend to rise, release the climb button, dive toward the ground again, and have to fiddle with the climb button repeatedly, but it can be done. I usually find it too irritating to do for long.
That's pretty much what I've ended up doing.


I've really been enjoying the story and missions in Faultline. OTOH, I've kicked Captain Castillo's ass three times on different missions, and now I apparently have to do it yet again, this time along with Nocturne and Arbiter Elvis. But I have to thank those of you who suggested stacking purple inspirations. That's made a huge difference in these boss fights.

Meanwhile, my main Resistance character has hit level 12 and is (hopefully) finished dealing with Destroyers. Dear Og, as a melee character I can't begin to express how tiresome it is spending approximately 75% of my time during fights standing in fire and/or flat on my back. Those !@#$% Blast Masters appear to have exactly one attack in their arsenal (Fire bomb! Fire bomb! Fire bomb!), and that one attack knocks you down and sets the ground on fire, and the Blast Masters will. not. move. unless you run halfway across the map. And then add in those Rocket Girls whose ranged attack also knocks you down... But other than that, this is a really fun character. Claws are a blast! She also managed to "get rich quick" because she found a couple pieces of rare salvage, one of which sold for 50k and the other for 200k at the AH. So she was able to afford to load up on level 15 DO enhancements.

[Der Trihs]

Meanwhile, my main Resistance character has hit level 12 and is (hopefully) finished dealing with Destroyers. Dear Og, as a melee character I can't begin to express how tiresome it is spending approximately 75% of my time during fights standing in fire and/or flat on my back. Those !@#$% Blast Masters appear to have exactly one attack in their arsenal (Fire bomb! Fire bomb! Fire bomb!), and that one attack knocks you down and sets the ground on fire, and the Blast Masters will. not. move. unless you run halfway across the map. And then add in those Rocket Girls whose ranged attack also knocks you down... But other than that, this is a really fun character.
Picking up, say Combat Jumping or Hover and sticking a Karma Knockback Reduction IO in there will stop that from happening; or a Steadfast Knockback Reduction IO if you have a damage resistance based power to stick it in. You probably can't afford one yet, but you can hope for a lucky drop.

[mlees]

Yeah, I always make sure that my "defense" powers on my melee characters include some power that includes a immoblise/knockdown/hold/sleep prevention ability (eventually).

You just have to "gut out" those early levels.

[Mister Rik]

Picking up, say Combat Jumping or Hover and sticking a Karma Knockback Reduction IO in there will stop that from happening; or a Steadfast Knockback Reduction IO if you have a damage resistance based power to stick it in. You probably can't afford one yet, but you can hope for a lucky drop.
As it happens, I did choose Super Jump for her travel power, and I've had my eye on adding Combat Jumping next.

Yeah, I always make sure that my "defense" powers on my melee characters include some power that includes a immoblise/knockdown/hold/sleep prevention ability (eventually).

You just have to "gut out" those early levels.

Yeah, unfortunately, her only "defense" powers at this point are Temp Invulnerability and whatever the first one in the Invulnerability power set is called. I can't recall without looking if she has an immoblise/knockdown/hold/sleep prevention ability coming up later.

[Balance]

Yeah, unfortunately, her only "defense" powers at this point are Temp Invulnerability and whatever the first one in the Invulnerability power set is called. I can't recall without looking if she has an immoblise/knockdown/hold/sleep prevention ability coming up later.
Unyielding (http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Invulnerability#Unyielding) is your mez protection power; it becomes available at level 8 or 16, depending on whether your defense set is primary or secondary--I gather that yours is secondary. I recommend picking it up as soon as possible, as mezzes start becoming more common as you approach 20.

[Der Trihs]

Unyielding (http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Invulnerability#Unyielding) is your mez protection power; it becomes available at level 8 or 16, depending on whether your defense set is primary or secondary--I gather that yours is secondary. I recommend picking it up as soon as possible, as mezzes start becoming more common as you approach 20.And to make it clear, it also stops knockback so there's no need for those -KB IOs I mentioned.

[Brainiac4]

Mez protection is the single best thing about playing melee characters. My SS/WP Brute (Truck Driving Elvis) is basically never immobilized, held, slept, disoriented or knocked down/back. Ever.

The second thing I look for when evaluating defense power sets is how fast you get the mez protection.

The first, of course, is its damage mitigation strategy. :)

[Balance]

And to make it clear, it also stops knockback so there's no need for those -KB IOs I mentioned.
Yes--knockdown(/back/up) is a "soft control", and often gets lumped in with other control effects for protection purposes, even though the modifier tables don't treat it as a control power.

[Heropsychodreamer]

I've skimmed through this thread and it seems like there are some new players to the game. I'm not in any of the SDMB groups, but anybody new to the game who would like a few million influence (money) to get rolling with, please post your in-game global and I will email you some.

[Onomatopoeia]

Speaking of cash, I've noticed that it seems to be much easier to accumulate more earlier in a character's career now. In the days before Wentworths, my characters were always dirt poor until their early 30s. Now, a lvl 15 can have a few million without too much struggle.

It's also much easier now that you can email cash between characters, as opposed to the old days when you had to ask someone, usually with a corresponding payment for the service, to hold cash for another of your characters, then log off and log on as the recipient character and hope you placed your trust appropriately to have the cash given to you.

[Lok]

Unyielding (http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Invulnerability#Unyielding) is your mez protection power; it becomes available at level 8 or 16, depending on whether your defense set is primary or secondary--I gather that yours is secondary. I recommend picking it up as soon as possible, as mezzes start becoming more common as you approach 20.

In addition to this, when you can get Invincibility, do so. The core powers for the Invulnerability set are Temp Invulnerability, Unyielding, Invincibility, and Tough Hide. Get all of them as soon as they are available. Since it is your secondary powerset, you have no choice about Resist Physical Damage. Tanks want it, but usually at a later point. And of course, you want to fit Dull Pain in somewhere. I also recommend getting the other 2 Resist auto powers, but they can wait until much later.

Onomatopoeia, yes if you can use the consignment house, money is no longer a problem no matter what level you are. All you need to be able to do is bid 100-200 Inf on a level 50 rare IO recipe. (Not one of the expensive ones of course.) When you buy it, you vendor it for 10,000, then use that as seed money to put multiple bids on other recipes like it. Repeat until you are tired of making money. Add in what you can get for certain drops, like Alchemical Silver, and money is no object for most things.

[WorkInProgress]

Heropsychodreamer, you can send all the inf you want to Gravity Masher. The invention system can be expensive.

[CandidGamera]

I actually logged on this weekend to respec all my guys for the "new" inherent fitness.. and promptly got sucked back in to playing. *sigh*

[Quimby]

FYI There is a new Halloween Costume bundle complete with a Brain in a Jar head.

[Mister Rik]

Well, my main hero character, Flaminatrix (http://www.mister-rik.com/hosted/coh/flaminatrix.jpg), has made it to level 26 and found her way to First Ward. I really like the storyline there! Anybody know if any of those Carnival of Light costume pieces are available to players? I mean aside from the Jester costumes. I kind of like those plaid, wrapped "skirts" some of the female CoL characters have. Also, I was doing an AE arc and encountered some enemies (some kind of demon girls) who used flaming whips. Anybody know what powerset that is part of? Because that would have been a perfect power for this character...

On the villain side, I am thoroughly enjoying my main villain's (Bruised Violet (http://www.mister-rik.com/hosted/coh/bruised_violet.jpg)) "Dark Melee" powerset. Mainly because the Shadow Maul power just fits her character concept so well. It delivers a series of rapid blows, and doesn't stop until the animation completes. Which means her enemy might actually go down after the first or second blow, but she just keeps right on wailing on them even after they're down :D She finally finished up Dr. Graves storyline last night, which I really enjoyed.

[Mister Rik]

Well, my main hero character, Flaminatrix (http://www.mister-rik.com/hosted/coh/flaminatrix.jpg), has made it to level 26

Er, 27, actually.

[Jophiel]

Also, I was doing an AE arc and encountered some enemies (some kind of demon girls) who used flaming whips. Anybody know what powerset that is part of?
Demon Summoning for Masterminds.

[Mister Rik]

Demon Summoning for Masterminds.

Ah, bummer. This character's a blaster. I tried playing a Mastermind character, but it didn't take me long to remember why I never liked playing a necromancer in Diablo II.

[Mister Rik]

So now that I have two characters past level 20, and have designed alternate costumes for them ...

Flaminatrix 1 (http://www.mister-rik.com/hosted/coh/flaminatrix01.jpg)
Flaminatrix 2 (http://www.mister-rik.com/hosted/coh/flaminatrix02.jpg)

Bruised Violet 1 (http://www.mister-rik.com/hosted/coh/bruisedviolet01.jpg)
Bruised Violet 2 (http://www.mister-rik.com/hosted/coh/bruisedviolet02.jpg)

(I didn't realize until I started designing BV's second costume that I'd picked the same face for both of these characters. Though you can hardly tell.)

... is there a way to automate, via scripting/macro, costume switching? I'm finding it annoying having to hit \k, select the animation I want, then drag the whole costume window off to the side to where it's not covering up the character so that I can actually see the animation, and then finally click on the new costume.

Was there something weird going on yesterday (Saturday) in the game world? Between these two characters I played for several hours, and I don't think I saw a minute of daylight in the "regular" world (outdoor mission maps were the exception). So either the "day" parts of the cycle were coinciding perfectly with my entering mission instances where I couldn't see it, on both characters, or it was just plain dark all day. Some connection to those weird banners (which I discovered, the hard way, I shouldn't mess with by myself)?

Bad timing of the day: BV got to 20 and got the mission from the Facemaker to go smack around 30 Family in Sharkhead Isle. I'm not a big fan of "hunting" missions, just because I find it kind of boring just flying around hoping to spot the mobs in question, but this one was made more frustrating because BV's arrival on Sharkhead coincided with a Zombie attack. Somebody in Help chat confirmed for me that when the zombies show up, all the regular mobs disappear, and that explained why I flew around the the place for 30 minutes or so without spotting a single Family mob. Well, I'd managed to beat up 10 or so, but then they just dried up and there were zombies everywhere.

I discovered the Trick or Treating entirely by accident, too. And I discovered the best way (for me) to do it: find a building, like the Hospital, that is guarded by those Arachnos Drones. Then knock on nearby doors and when I get a "Trick", make a beeline to that building so that the drones can take out those overpowered monsters that come chasing after me. The first time I got a "trick", the monsters happened to be flying specters that were a bit too tough for me, and when I tried to escape they would not give up the chase. I swear I flew more than a mile away from where they spawned and they were still right on my tail. I only finally got rid of them by finding the AE building and ducking inside.

[Arrogance Ex Machina]

Was there something weird going on yesterday (Saturday) in the game world? Between these two characters I played for several hours, and I don't think I saw a minute of daylight in the "regular" world (outdoor mission maps were the exception). Some connection to those weird banners (which I discovered, the hard way, I shouldn't mess with by myself)?


It's all part of the Halloween event. I don't actually know how those banners work either, they seem to be protected/attacked by some monsters but I wasn't sure if we were supposed to protect the banner or destroy it or what. Don't mind the banners so much but the zombies are a pain if you are trying to do something in the zone they are popping in at. They don't even let you be in peace when you stand on a roof, you have to find a balcony or other wire-like structure like that if you want to go afk at all and can't fly.

[Der Trihs]

... is there a way to automate, via scripting/macro, costume switching? I think so, but I don't know it.

Was there something weird going on yesterday (Saturday) in the game world? Between these two characters I played for several hours, and I don't think I saw a minute of daylight in the "regular" world (outdoor mission maps were the exception). So either the "day" parts of the cycle were coinciding perfectly with my entering mission instances where I couldn't see it, on both characters, or it was just plain dark all day. Some connection to those weird banners (which I discovered, the hard way, I shouldn't mess with by myself)?As said the Halloween event is on, which means it's permanent night.

As for the banners, they are a timed event requiring coordination.


Several people at each banner kill monsters.

If they kill enough the Banners become vulnerable (there's a progress bar).

Everyone gathers at a banner to destroy it, then moves to the next until all 4 are destroyed.

The event Giant Monster then spawns, with X/Y coordinates appearing to tell you how far you are from it.

Track down and kill the GM before the timer runs out.


Bad timing of the day: BV got to 20 and got the mission from the Facemaker to go smack around 30 Family in Sharkhead Isle. I'm not a big fan of "hunting" missions, just because I find it kind of boring just flying around hoping to spot the mobs in question, but this one was made more frustrating because BV's arrival on Sharkhead coincided with a Zombie attack.Actually the easiest place for that mission is Port Oakes in Marconeville. Lots of Family and they are all much lower level than you by then.

[Mister Rik]

Actually the easiest place for that mission is Port Oakes in Marconeville. Lots of Family and they are all much lower level than you by then.

Oh cool, didn't know I could do that. I've had a few other missions where I had to defeat X number of Mob Y in Zone Z, and whacking them in any other zone didn't count. Of course, Mob Y is usually thick on the ground in the zone where I got the mission, and rare as hen's teeth in Zone Z.

[Lute Skywatcher]

Oh cool, didn't know I could do that. I've had a few other missions where I had to defeat X number of Mob Y in Zone Z, and whacking them in any other zone didn't count. Of course, Mob Y is usually thick on the ground in the zone where I got the mission, and rare as hen's teeth in Zone Z.If the Mission tab says "X of Y", it doesn't matter where; even Tips and Newspaper/Scanner missions count. If it specifically says "X of Y in Z" then the target has to be in Z for it to count.

[E-Sabbath]

The Halloween Trial has a third badge: do the haunted house wearing a trick or treat costume.

Also, there's a secret boss. Not an elite boss.
1: NOBODY GO IN THE HOUSE.
2: Talk to Devil Girl. Make a pact.
3: Find Bored Guy or Girl on the side of the house by the candy cauldron. Tell them to eat the candy.
4: Do the same on the opposite side of the house.
5: Go back to Devil Girl.
6: Fight.

[Balance]

... is there a way to automate, via scripting/macro, costume switching? I'm finding it annoying having to hit \k, select the animation I want, then drag the whole costume window off to the side to where it's not covering up the character so that I can actually see the animation, and then finally click on the new costume.
Yep. I have several costume-change macros on my main. The command to create one is in this format:

/macro [macroname] cce [costume slot number] cc[costume change emote name]

For example, if I want a macro to switch to my demon costume while wreathed in flames and laughing evilly:

/macro DEM cce 3 ccevillaugh

That'll make a macro button labeled "DEM" appear in the first open slot in your power trays. Clicking it will switch to your fourth costume slot (the slot numbers start with 0) while doing the Evil Laugh costume change emote.

Mine are actually a bit more elaborate, because I also have them set my title. My actual DEM macro was set with

/macro DEM settitle 638$$cce 3 ccevillaugh

which sets my title to "Hell Hath No Fury". You have to know the badge IDs to do that, and you have to have the relevant badge. You can look up the IDs on ParagonWiki (http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Settitle_%28Slash_Command%29/listing).

You can bind the same commands to a key, if you prefer that to a macro.

[Mister Rik]

Thanks, Balance. I'll fool with that and see what I can come up with :)

[Mister Rik]

Woot! Level 30!

And on that note...

Actually the easiest place for that mission is Port Oakes in Marconeville. Lots of Family and they are all much lower level than you by then.

Can you recommend a blueside zone where I can find "easier" Crey mobs? I've got the level 30 hero costume slot quest, "Protect Lauren from Crey", and all Lauren tells me is, "You can find Crey in Crey's Folly or Founders' Falls".

Aside from the fact that I'm beginning to despise these "hunting" missions, before receiving this one I hadn't even laid eyes on a Crey mob outside of maybe one AE arc, and I also hadn't even set foot in either of those zones. So I need to go to zones I've never visited and just randomly fly around hoping to spot the mobs in question. So I try Crey's Folly first, and find the place swarming with mobs that are way out of my league (as in, one took a potshot at me as I flew past and 50% of my hit points were gone), and the Crey mobs I find that I might stand a chance against are all level 31 and standing around in crowds of ten or more. So I decided to try Founders' Falls, where I flew around and around and around and found Circle of Thorns, and Rikti, and Council, and 5th Column, but not one single Crey.

If my objective is confined to a particular area(s) of a zone, it would sure help if the mission text would say so. It would save a lot of time. I don't mind being defeated in a more or less "fair fight"; I do mind not being able to find the fight in the first place.

ETA: Also, I'm finding the COH Wiki (I checked there first) to be all but useless for finding this kind of information. Is there a better source out there? I guess I'm kind of spoiled by the various 3rd-party WoW resources.

[Onomatopoeia]

Woot! Level 30!

And on that note...



Can you recommend a blueside zone where I can find "easier" Crey mobs? I've got the level 30 hero costume slot quest, "Protect Lauren from Crey", and all Lauren tells me is, "You can find Crey in Crey's Folly or Founders' Falls".

You can find lots of Crey in Brickstown, in the big parking lot behind the train station and throughout the zone. You can also find many on the tops of buildings in Brickstown. However, the closer you get to the Crey's Folly entrance, the higher level Crey you'll encounter. Stay close to the train station / Independence Port entrance for lower-level Crey. There's no reason to go to Crey's Folly for Crey unless specifically required by the mission.

[Der Trihs]

Can you recommend a blueside zone where I can find "easier" Crey mobs? I've got the level 30 hero costume slot quest, "Protect Lauren from Crey", and all Lauren tells me is, "You can find Crey in Crey's Folly or Founders' Falls".Go to the Technology Store in Founder's Falls and take his mission, it's full of Crey and counts for the hunt. If you need Rikti for the aura unlocking mission (offered by the City Representative in Atlas if you don't know), take the mission offered by the Science Store in Brickstown. Also for the aura mission, there are low level Devouring Earth to the west of the Terra Volta gate in Independence Port.

[Mister Rik]

Thanks again :)

[Mister Rik]

I forgot I had another question I meant to ask:

Does accuracy of "low-level" attack powers degrade as you level, or am I just experiencing remarkably specific and consistent bad luck with the RNG? Specifically, I'm talking about the very first power my main character learned ("Flares", from the "Fire Blast" blaster power set). As I got this character closer and closer to level 30, her Flares power started missing more and more often, compared to her other attacks powers, despite the fact that it's got the same Accuracy enhancement slotted into it that is slotted into her other attack powers. I thought at first this was just perception, but I started paying close attention and it became clear that Flares really was/is missing far more often than her other attacks.

If it's just RNG bad luck, I guess I can live with that - it'll swing the other way eventually. If it's an intentional mechanic, Accuracy would seem to be an odd choice for the degradation of the power. I could understand a "starter" power's damage scaling in such a way that it becomes less effective at higher levels, but it doesn't make much sense that a character would become less accurate with the power she's been using longer than any other.

[Jophiel]

There's "beginner's luck (http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Beginner%27s_Luck#Beginner.27s_Luck)" when you're starting which is an innate accuracy bonus to all attacks. It degrades each level and is gone by level 20. Since you've been using Flares the whole time, that may be what you're noticing since you started with a big +ACC bonus that was going away as you got your other powers.

Another thing is that Flares has a base accuracy of (1) (http://tomax.cohtitan.com/data/powers/powerset.php?id=Blaster_Ranged.Fire_Blast) whereas some of your other powers have a higher base accuracy (Fireball is 1.2, Blazing Bolt is 1.2, etc) so as Blaze's crutch of Beginner's Luck has gone away, you've picked up new powers that are more accurate to begin with. Furthermore, NPCs may have more defense or resistance now, depending on type.

So, in comparison, Blaze seems to be hitting worse than "it used to" on multiple levels. But Blaze itself has been unchanged.

[Mister Rik]

Okay, yeah, somebody else told me about the Beginner's Luck thing a while ago, and I did indeed notice a difference after level 20. But I saw the difference in all of this character's powers at that time. What I'm seeing now seems to be limited to just Flares, and started becoming noticeable around level 26-27 and has just gotten "worse" since. Fire Blast, the second attack power she learned, also has a base accuracy of 1, and doesn't seem to miss nearly as often. Both of these powers recharge quickly enough now that I could almost, but not quite, get into a rhythm of alternating between just those two attacks, so I use Fire Blast almost as often as Flares.

Of course, there's the "video game logic" of these things, too, wherein these things are governed by mathematical formulas, not common sense. I've wondered, starting with my fire mage in WoW, how in the world is it even possible to "miss" with a frackin' fireball at point-blank range? :D

[Balance]

I've wondered, starting with my fire mage in WoW, how in the world is it even possible to "miss" with a frackin' fireball at point-blank range? :D
He happened to be directly behind another guy (or an object) from the point-source of the fireball, and was therefore in a blast shadow. Or he saw it coming and dove out of the radius. (Yeah, I know the mob didn't actually dive for cover; the engine doesn't support it. It's still implicitly part of the Defense mechanic.) Stuff like that. Just like hit points, armor class, and such are abstractions of complex combat.

For Flares, specifically...I don't know what it is about Flares. People have had the impression that the power is extremely inaccurate for years, but the data doesn't support it. There's nothing in the power stats to say it's particularly inaccurate, and at various points, people have actually tested it enough to gather a statistically valid sample, and found that it really does have normal accuracy. The impression persists. My pet theory is that when you miss with Flares, it's so stupid-looking that it sticks in your mind, and that makes it seem to happen more often.

I don't know if that applies to your particular situation, but I felt you should know that you're not alone in your annoyance with the power.

On the subject of finding mobs, among other things, you might consider loading the Vidiotmaps overlay (http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/files/category/1-vidiotmaps-map-pack/). It's an unofficial patch that puts an overlay on your map. In addition to various other useful bits of info, the margins of the map indicate the type and levels of mobs that spawn in various areas of the zone.

[Arrogance Ex Machina]

If you are really curious about misses and hits, switch one of your chat windows to show Combat stuff. It will show every to-hit roll you make and the chance to hit, roughly like this:

You HIT the Freak Gunner with your Flare!
You rolled 25.45, with 76.52% chance to hit.
Blahblah fire damage.

[Mister Rik]

Hey, Onomatopoeia, I found the Crey guys in that parking lot and vicinity, right where you said they'd be - thanks :)

Of course, my arrival in Brickstown coincided with a zombie attack again *grumble grumble*

He happened to be directly behind another guy (or an object) from the point-source of the fireball, and was therefore in a blast shadow. Or he saw it coming and dove out of the radius. (Yeah, I know the mob didn't actually dive for cover; the engine doesn't support it. It's still implicitly part of the Defense mechanic.) Stuff like that. Just like hit points, armor class, and such are abstractions of complex combat.
Oh yeah, I understand that — I played D&D, and that's all explained in the rulebooks, and I understood the same principle applied when I started playing these kinds of video games. It's just the visual, when I stick my hand right in the guy's face (because he ran up to me to punch me, so he's close enough to touch) and cut loose with this huge ball of fire ... and it misses. I guess it can be explained in "roleplaying" fashion, based on the animation when I miss at close range - my hands go up and I launch the attack over the enemy's head. I'll just say he didn't dodge; rather, I twitched at the last moment.

OTOH, there's really no good explanation for the lack of "friendly fire" (I lob an AoE attack at a group of thugs, and it leaves the hapless civilian they've surrounded untouched) other than "gameplay reasons". Though D&D did introduce feats for spellcasters that allowed them to shape the blast radius of their AoE spells to avoid hitting friendlies. It was kind of silly.

I played my Archery character for a bit last night and had an amusing situation, caused by latency I assume, where I made an attack and the word "MISS" appeared next to the mob before my character had even finished drawing her bow :p

For Flares, specifically...I don't know what it is about Flares. People have had the impression that the power is extremely inaccurate for years, but the data doesn't support it. There's nothing in the power stats to say it's particularly inaccurate, and at various points, people have actually tested it enough to gather a statistically valid sample, and found that it really does have normal accuracy. The impression persists. My pet theory is that when you miss with Flares, it's so stupid-looking that it sticks in your mind, and that makes it seem to happen more often.

I don't know if that applies to your particular situation, but I felt you should know that you're not alone in your annoyance with the power.
Like I said in my original question, I admit it could just be perception, and it sounds like that's the case, but yeah, I'm glad it's not just me perceiving it that way :)


On the subject of finding mobs, among other things, you might consider loading the Vidiotmaps overlay (http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/files/category/1-vidiotmaps-map-pack/). It's an unofficial patch that puts an overlay on your map. In addition to various other useful bits of info, the margins of the map indicate the type and levels of mobs that spawn in various areas of the zone.
I'll take a look at that - it sounds helpful.


Hey, will this "always night" thing end after today?

[Mister Rik]

Double post

[Bosstone]

One of the first things I set up on each new character is the Combat Attributes Monitor. It's a small window that will show you various statistics about yourself, I think up to 10, that you can choose yourself.

You can access the window by going to Powers and clicking on Combat Attributes. Right-clicking on a particular data point will give you the option to Monitor it, which will generate the Monitor window which you can move around the UI.

By default, I use:

Regeneration Rate
Recovery Rate
Endurance Consumption
Damage Bonus
Last Hit Chance
One or two appropriate Damage Resistance or Defense values (if I have a defensive powerset)
Experience to Next Level
Experience Debt
Influence/Infamy/Information

Any other info you might find useful can be put there as well.

I bring this up both because it's highly useful, and because having that Last Hit Chance is very helpful. If you think you're having difficulty hitting, you can start watching that number and see just what kind of chance you had. If you're missing and it's reading 90-95%, then you're just victim to RNG. If it's reading 44-50% or something, then you can start looking at why it's so low.

Even then, that will only give you brief, passing glances per attack. If you really want to judge your overall performance, you'll need to use either HeroStats or a combat log parser.

[Balance]

Hey, will this "always night" thing end after today?
The Halloween event (http://na.cityofheroes.com/en/news/events/halloween_event.php) runs through November 2, so we should be back to a regular day/night cycle by Thursday.

[Mister Rik]

Well darn it, the VidiotMap download is an .exe file, and I play on a Mac.

[Lute Skywatcher]

Here, print these out.
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=abandoned_sewer_network&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=atlas_park&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=mayhem_ap&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=safeguard_ap&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=bloody_bay&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=boomtown&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=breakout&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=brickstown&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=mayhem_bricks&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=safeguard_bricks&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=cap_au_diable&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=cap_au_diable&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=cimerora&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=creys_folly&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=croatoa&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=dark_astoria&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=destroyed_galaxy_city&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=echo_galaxy_city&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=eden&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=faultline&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=firebase_zulu&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=first_ward&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=founders_falls&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=mayhem_ff&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=safeguard_ff&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=grandville&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=imperial_city&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=independence_port&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=mayhem_ip&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=safeguard_ip&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=kings_row&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=mayhem_kr&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=safeguard_kr&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=mercy_island&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=midnighter_club&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=monster_island&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=nerva_archipelago&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=neutropolis&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=nova_praetoria&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=ouroboros&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=outbreak&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=peregrine_island&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=mayhem_pi&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=safeguard_pi&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=perez_park&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=pocket_d&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=port_oakes&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=precinct_five&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=recluses_victory&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=rikti_war_zone&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=sewer_network&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=sharkhead_isle&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=sirens_call&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=skyway_city&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=mayhem_sky&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=safeguard_sky&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=st_martial&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=steel_canyon&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=mayhem_sc&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=safeguard_sc&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=striga_isle&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=talos_island&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=mayhem_ti&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=safeguard_ti&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=talos_island1&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=terra_volta&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=the_abyss&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=the_chantry&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=the_hive&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=the_hollows&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=the_storm_palace&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=the_tunnels&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=underground_imperial&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=underground_neutropolis&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=underground_nova&type=po
http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/maps_po.php?map=warburg&type=po

[Mister Rik]

Um, whoa! I guess I should have mentioned that I'd already found those on that site. But thanks for taking the time :)

[Brainiac4]

Looks like you can also get the Map Pack effect on OS X by manually uploading the map files, which sounds annoying but worthwhile - the Map Pack is very handy.

[Mister Rik]

BTW, I just wanted to mention that I am really enjoying this game a lot, and having great fun. Rereading some of my posts here, I realize I may sound like I'm not enjoying myself. What happens is that, by the time I post my question/complaint here, I've already tried for quite some time to figure something out for myself, and have become frustrated by my lack of success. I usually feel like I'm missing some obvious thing. So I post my question, and my tendency toward excessive exposition* can end up making my question look more like a rant, and I apologize for that and thank you all for your patience.



* I'm completely terrible at live, in-person conversation, and have ended up with some awkward situations where, in an effort to keep a conversation moving without long pauses while I compose my replies, I say the first thing that pops into my head and what comes out sounds completely different from what I meant. So I love written communication because it lets me take the time to carefully phrase everything in the hope that my meaning will be crystal clear and leave no room for misinterpretation. The downside of this, of course, is that I can end up going on and on and on until it sounds like I'm ranting... :(

[Mister Rik]

For Flares, specifically...I don't know what it is about Flares. People have had the impression that the power is extremely inaccurate for years, but the data doesn't support it. There's nothing in the power stats to say it's particularly inaccurate, and at various points, people have actually tested it enough to gather a statistically valid sample, and found that it really does have normal accuracy. The impression persists. My pet theory is that when you miss with Flares, it's so stupid-looking that it sticks in your mind, and that makes it seem to happen more often.

I got some satisfaction yesterday when I was on this character doing a Tip mission that had me going up against the Circle of Thorns. The mission instance was full of those "Thorn Caster Fire" mobs, who appear to have the same primary power set (Fire Blast) as my character. And I got to watch as they successfully hit me with everything ... except Flares, which kept missing me :D

[Mister Rik]

Dang, did I kill the thread?

I got my first Praetorian Resistance character (my Claws/Invulnerability character) to level 20; she done blowed up the Enriche pumping station real good and then made her escape to Paragon. Glad to be there, too, since she was dirt poor from having to spend so much Inf on enhancements, what with Praetoria's lack of AE (my Primal Earth characters just hit AE for tickets when they need to upgrade their enhancements, letting them save their Inf for other things).

[Quimby]

Dang, did I kill the thread?



Nah these long standing threads ebb and flow as new things come up to talk about. Everyone is just playing Skyrim :)

[Bosstone]

I find it kind of funny that the thread ebbed during one of the weirdest buggy patches I can remember. (Yes, I know, I could have posted too.)

- The UI got reset every time folks logged in. Minor issue, as if you'd saved your window position you could just type /wdwload and everything would be back to normal, but still annoying as heck.
- Folks with ATI graphics cards got locked out of the game due to the game claiming they had outdated drivers.
- Carnival of Shadows bosses would sometimes be replaced with an Elite Boss version of Vanessa DeVore.
- And most entertainingly, Supergroup base defenses would attack players in their own bases.

The players raised such a racket that Paragon pushed through a new patch yesterday which fixed the first three (and quite a few people are happy the fourth is still going on, funnily enough).

In other news, I'm loving both my Crab Spider, who's well along the Incarnate path now and is rocking a Crabstermind build, and my Bots/Traps Mastermind, who's still only level 34 and in SOs but has already begun soloing +2/x8 spawns. I used to be a big fan of the melee characters for their ability to be self-sufficient, but the Crab and MM are scarily effective characters that not only bring ridiculous damage but also buff the team and make everyone else that much more awesome. There is little more satisfying in the game than walking into a room stuffed full of enemies and turning it into blazing chaos with your own personal minions running around causing havoc.

[Der Trihs]

I got my first Praetorian Resistance character (my Claws/Invulnerability character) to level 20; she done blowed up the Enriche pumping station real good and then made her escape to Paragon. Glad to be there, too, since she was dirt poor from having to spend so much Inf on enhancements, what with Praetoria's lack of AE (my Primal Earth characters just hit AE for tickets when they need to upgrade their enhancements, letting them save their Inf for other things).Did you know that you can mail things like inf and enhancements to yourself? Just use your global name with a @ in front of it; any of your characters can claim the mail. Very useful for funding poor characters from richer ones.

I find it kind of funny that the thread ebbed during one of the weirdest buggy patches I can remember. (Yes, I know, I could have posted too.)Cause and effect, in my case. I haven't played the game since the bugged patch came out; I've been playing Skyrim. Which is exactly the opposite of what was intended I'm sure; I agree with the theory that the bugged patch was pushed live because some marketing type insisted that it be released NOW! to counter Skyrim being released.

[Mister Rik]

- Folks with ATI graphics cards got locked out of the game due to the game claiming they had outdated drivers.
Oddly, this didn't affect me, perhaps because of the emulation (the "Mac client" is apparently the Windows client running under some Mac version of Wine, which was originally written for Linux to emulate Windows... or so I've read on the CoH Mac forum).

Did you know that you can mail things like inf and enhancements to yourself? Just use your global name with a @ in front of it; any of your characters can claim the mail. Very useful for funding poor characters from richer ones.
So that's how you do it! I tried mailing some Inf from one character to another and it told me I could only send mail with attachments to global names, which I mistakenly interpreted as meaning I could only send the stuff to somebody else. Does this work across servers? Because this particular character is my highest-level character on that particular server (Liberty; my two characters that are higher are both on Justice).

[Der Trihs]

So that's how you do it! I tried mailing some Inf from one character to another and it told me I could only send mail with attachments to global names, which I mistakenly interpreted as meaning I could only send the stuff to somebody else. Does this work across servers? Because this particular character is my highest-level character on that particular server (Liberty; my two characters that are higher are both on Justice).It works across servers fine, and across heroes/villains/Praetorians too. The only exceptions being the Beta & Test servers, you can't send to or from there.

[Bosstone]

Yeah, if something's global (like global names or global channels), it will automatically work across all servers. Really handy for global channels, since if you and your buddies share a channel and normally hang out on one server, you can go to another and still talk. The chat system in City is easily the best I've ever seen in an MMO, and I feel its lack whenever I try a new game.

[Mister Rik]

I was having the most annoying problem yesterday while doing Kings Row radio missions on a couple of my low-level blasters: Vahzilok Cadavers. I've fought plenty of Vahzilok on other characters, including other blasters, with little trouble. But yesterday while fighting them at level 9, it was the same thing over and over: I'd be at full health (~225 hp), the Cadaver would run up, puke on me, I'd take 37 points of damage, and then keel over dead 2 seconds later. My level 9 Assault Rifle/Devices character died to the exact same Cadaver in exactly the same way three times, and I finally gave up and just auto-completed the mission. Her next radio mission was against Arachnos, who she mowed down with no trouble. I had the same basic problem on another level 9 blaster earlier in the day. I don't know if it's a bug, or if those Cadavers got inadvertently buffed in the last patch, or what. I just know this wasn't happening on previous characters.

Another issue that may or may not be a bug: My main villain has the Dark Armor power set, and one of her toggle powers is Death Shroud (http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Dark_Armor#Death_Shroud). It keeps turning itself off for some reason I can't discern. There's nothing in its description to indicate a limited duration, and it's not shutting off because I've run out of Endurance - I usually also have Dark Embrace (http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Dark_Armor#Dark_Embrace) and Murky Cloud (http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Dark_Armor#Murky_Cloud) active at the same time, and they're not shutting off. Just Death Shroud. Do some enemy mobs have the ability to selectively shut my powers off or something?

Speaking of Dark Armor, is there a graphics setting that will allow me to "tone down" aura effects? When this character has those three toggles active, the smoky cloud around her is so thick that I can barely see her. So when I play her I go into the graphics settings and Enable the "Suppress FX when close" setting, which completely hides these effects. The downside of this is that with that setting enabled, if she uses Cloak of Darkness (http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Dark_Armor#Cloak_of_Darkness) to stealth herself, she vanishes completely —even I can't see her, which means I just don't use that power. I suspect my only option for "toning down" the effects is to visit Facemakers and experiment with the color palette to customize the power effects to something less obtrusive. I had to do that with another character's "Fiery Aura", because with the default colors it was so intense that it completely obscured the character when active.

Also, I wish I had known there were quests to unlock capes and auras before I spent points in the store for them. Are there any other costume-slot-unlocking quests I should know about so that I can save my points if I haven't spent them to unlock things already?

Anybody else not receive their 400 points or reward token for November? My bill date was the 14th and I've received neither this month. Apparently neither have a lot of other people.

Quest That Made Me LOL of the Day (which y'all have probably seen already): A radio mission to rescue a videogame developer who was kidnaped by Arachnos, with the police speculating that it's because Arachnos didn't like they way the game portrayed them. When I finally found the guy I was supposed to rescue, I found the Arachnos guys complaining at him about how "They nerfed my class!" and "The last bugfix closed my favorite exploit!" :p

Since I've been playing CoH so much, I've had to laugh at myself several times for silly mistakes when switching back to WoW:

• Left-clicking on things instead of right-clicking

• "Why the !@#$ can't I jump over this 3-foot-high obstacle?!" (Made me realize this is a serious WTF thing in WoW: My paladin has a Strength score of nearly 6000, and can't jump 3 feet in the air?)

• Took my night elf hunter to Sethekk Halls to kill the boss in there for the holiday achievement, and stood there in front of the instance portal clicking on it and wondering why nothing was happening :smack:

[Der Trihs]

Another issue that may or may not be a bug: My main villain has the Dark Armor power set, and one of her toggle powers is Death Shroud (http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Dark_Armor#Death_Shroud). It keeps turning itself off for some reason I can't discern. There's nothing in its description to indicate a limited duration, and it's not shutting off because I've run out of Endurance - I usually also have Dark Embrace (http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Dark_Armor#Dark_Embrace) and Murky Cloud (http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Dark_Armor#Murky_Cloud) active at the same time, and they're not shutting off. Just Death Shroud. Do some enemy mobs have the ability to selectively shut my powers off or something?Do you have Dark Armor's Mez protection Obsidian Shield yet? Or are you fighting Tsoo, who have been known to stun even Tanks with stacked stuns? Getting mezzed shuts off offensive toggles like Death Shroud.

Speaking of Dark Armor, is there a graphics setting that will allow me to "tone down" aura effects? When this character has those three toggles active, the smoky cloud around her is so thick that I can barely see her. So when I play her I go into the graphics settings and Enable the "Suppress FX when close" setting, which completely hides these effects. The downside of this is that with that setting enabled, if she uses Cloak of Darkness (http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Dark_Armor#Cloak_of_Darkness) to stealth herself, she vanishes completely —even I can't see her, which means I just don't use that power. Cloak of Darkness at least has a setting in the Costume Power Customization screen that leaves you visible while using it.

Also, I wish I had known there were quests to unlock capes and auras before I spent points in the store for them. Ha; I spent the points to buy those unlocks because I was so tired of doing those same missions on every single character, plus it's nice to have those options open at level 1.

[Jophiel]

The benefit of the cape/aura unlocks from the store is that they are account wide and good from level one. The mission arcs can't be done until level 20 and 30 respectively and need to be done for each character which gets old in a hurry. So take some solace.

[Mister Rik]

Do you have Dark Armor's Mez protection Obsidian Shield yet? Or are you fighting Tsoo, who have been known to stun even Tanks with stacked stuns? Getting mezzed shuts off offensive toggles like Death Shroud.
That must be it. As a level 24 villain she hasn't seen much in the way of Tsoo yet, but there have probably been some mezzers amongst the other mobs she's fought. She has Obsidian Shield, but I've been leaving that off except when I know I'm going to be facing a lot of psionic types. The first three toggles already suck enough Endurance as it is, so I try to turn off the ones I don't absolutely need.

Cloak of Darkness at least has a setting in the Costume Power Customization screen that leaves you visible while using it.
Cool, that's good to know :)

Ha; I spent the points to buy those unlocks because I was so tired of doing those same missions on every single character, plus it's nice to have those options open at level 1.

The benefit of the cape/aura unlocks from the store is that they are account wide and good from level one. The mission arcs can't be done until level 20 and 30 respectively and need to be done for each character which gets old in a hurry. So take some solace.
Ah, okay, so doing the quests isn't an account-wide unlock. So I can be happy, then :D