Wanted! City of Heroes Players! [Archive] - Page 7

Bosstone

11-28-2011, 10:38 AM

This mindset is why my playing has tapered off to about zero with the whole F2P cash shop thing. I saw it at first with the Celestial "VIP but not really VIP unless you buy a ton of tokens" armor and it's since turned into this. Yeah, they're a company and in the business to make money but it's never been so naked before.See, this and the rest of the outcry about the super pack makes me think that folks were only willing to accept City adopting certain F2P practices as long as they didn't actually adopt certain F2P practices.

I probably shouldn't snark too much, as there's things developers have done to games that leave a bad taste in my mouth; I basically lost all interest in WoW once Blizzard pushed through the RealID crap, even after they rescinded the worst of the privacy violations. It just kind of baffles me that a company, which is trying to make money, trying the booster pack deal, which is a proven money-maker in other markets, via a single product in the market should engender such ill will. As much as I like IOs and new costumes, I don't consider it my right as a player to have access to a costume set they choose to sell in a way in which I don't want to buy.

For that matter, powersets which even VIPs have to buy are obvious naked money grabs too, but I haven't heard nearly the outcry for those that I've heard for these super packs. I just hear about people dying for Titan Weapons to come out so they can buy it and play it.

Jophiel

11-28-2011, 11:19 AM

See, this and the rest of the outcry about the super pack makes me think that folks were only willing to accept City adopting certain F2P practices as long as they didn't actually adopt certain F2P practices.
To an extent, yeah. I want to pay my $15 a month and have my experience be identical to where it was before the F2P conversion. That's the point of my paying $15 a month. This includes things like being able to drop ten bucks and buy a new costume booster right out the door on costume set launch day without a bunch of ridiculous crap like special VIP tokens or "random booster packs".

They certainly have their right to change that and I have my right to think "this sucks and I dislike these changes" and react accordingly.

Bosstone

11-28-2011, 11:33 AM

To an extent, yeah. I want to pay my $15 a month and have my experience be identical to where it was before the F2P conversion. That's the point of my paying $15 a month. This includes things like being able to drop ten bucks and buy a new costume booster right out the door on costume set launch day without a bunch of ridiculous crap like special VIP tokens or "random booster packs".Sure, but is it your right to have every single costume set like that? Even as they're planning the super packs, they're also working on releasing the Gunslinger pack. I have to admit the pack has its problems, and frankly they annoy me more than the super packs themselves, but it's evidence that they're not going to hide every costume pack behind BS like the super packs or the VIP rewards.

I dunno. You don't like what you don't like, of course. It just seems so weird to me that people should leave the game over a small, non-fundamental experiment.

smiling bandit

11-28-2011, 12:19 PM

I dunno. You don't like what you don't like, of course. It just seems so weird to me that people should leave the game over a small, non-fundamental experiment.

A small, non-fundamental experiment which is a direct insult to them.

Jophiel

11-28-2011, 12:28 PM

Sure, but is it your right to have every single costume set like that?
No, who said it was? That's just silly. I'm not talking about "rights" or things I'm "owed" or whatever else. Heck, I don't even feel insulted. I'm talking about what I want to see as a consumer paying $15 when a company changes business models. If I don't like it, I stop paying $15. I don't like the way the company is using its F2P model to extract extra money from legacy VIP subscription-paying customers. I didn't like it when it launched with the Celestial token-locked "VIP" stuff and them deciding this now just shows me that it's going to get worse instead of getting better.

I was pre-paid into December so, when this F2P thing started I figured I'd wait it out and see if I liked it. From what I'm seeing now that my subscription is coming to an end, I don't like it.

Quimby

11-28-2011, 12:37 PM

I think the anger about having to buy powersets was real but the ship sailed so people just accept it now. Plus you can rationalize it by saying that VIPs can get them for free if they just save up their free points. This seems different to me. In theory, you can spend every point you have an never get something you want because it is random. Also making it random just seems very manipulative to me. I hope I don't like the costume sets so I can ignore the entire thing.

Bosstone

11-28-2011, 12:38 PM

A small, non-fundamental experiment which is a direct insult to them.A, say, "slap in the face"?

Bosstone

11-28-2011, 12:49 PM

I really shouldn't just respond with snark, my bad.I don't like the way the company is using its F2P model to extract extra money from legacy VIP subscription-paying customers.But see, this wording makes it sound like you have an expectation that you should have the costume set. Nobody's being forced to pay out, nobody's money or points are being 'extracted'. You can ignore the super packs and not have your current gameplay hurt at all. Nobody's making you buy it.

I should probably leave this alone, both here and on the City boards. It really just comes down to a difference of opinion and priorities, which aren't easily swayable. I just can't help poking at it like a sore tooth.

Case in point:
Plus you can rationalize it by saying that VIPs can get them for free if they just save up their free points.And super packs don't cost anything if you pay for them with your free points either. Nothing different about it.Also making it random just seems very manipulative to me.It's about as manipulative as making a powerset, or even a game, desirable to play and therefore purchase. It just takes a different tack.

I have a hunch that the costume pieces will be made tradeable, though. The IOs are already confirmed to be. The catalysts that bump the IOs to Very Rare will probably remain exclusive, but I think, I hope, most people can live with that.

smiling bandit

11-28-2011, 01:01 PM

A, say, "slap in the face"?

For that, you'd have to ask them.

I know the Star Pony mess didn't draw me into renewing my Blizzard subscription. Even the knowledge that I didn't really care for the Star Pony failed to stop the annoyance I saw lowbies running around on them.

Jophiel

11-28-2011, 01:28 PM

But see, this wording makes it sound like you have an expectation that you should have the costume set. Nobody's being forced to pay out, nobody's money or points are being 'extracted'. You can ignore the super packs and not have your current gameplay hurt at all. Nobody's making you buy it.
That's true. No one is making me pay a subscription or buy things in the cash shop or anything else for that matter. I need to be encouraged to do so via business practices I'm happy with. I was happy with the old practices and am less so with the new ones.

My costume set expectations are based on the business model prior to the F2P conversion and cash shop. Then, they'd release a booster and I'd drop $10 for it if I wanted it and that was that. This is no longer the case and they no longer meet the expectations they once set. As they changed their model, I changed my spending habits to not include CoH.

Bosstone

11-28-2011, 01:44 PM

That's true. No one is making me pay a subscription or buy things in the cash shop or anything else for that matter. I need to be encouraged to do so via business practices I'm happy with. I was happy with the old practices and am less so with the new ones.

My costume set expectations are based on the business model prior to the F2P conversion and cash shop. Then, they'd release a booster and I'd drop $10 for it if I wanted it and that was that. This is no longer the case and they no longer meet the expectations they once set. As they changed their model, I changed my spending habits to not include CoH.Fair enough. I think it's overkill, but it's of course up to you. I'm going to try to stop poking at the loose tooth.

Jophiel

11-28-2011, 02:06 PM

It's fifteen dollars. It's not overkill in any direction, it's just how I decide to spend my leisure dollars. No one's canceling multimillion dollar contracts here.

Bosstone

11-28-2011, 02:18 PM

It's fifteen dollars. It's not overkill in any direction, it's just how I decide to spend my leisure dollars. No one's canceling multimillion dollar contracts here.Again, fair enough. I've been spending too much time in the relevant threads on the game's forums, which do act like each sub is a multimillion dollar contract. It's been a little...well, psychotic, to put it gently.

Quimby

01-15-2012, 11:38 AM

To be honest all my gaming time has been split between SWTOR and Skyrim but Issue 22 is on beta. Some Highlights:

1. Dark Astoria has been revamped into solo/small team Incarnate content. You now have a path (albeit slower) without having to do trials.

2. Dark control has been added (with new powers) plus new Dark secondaries for both Doms and Controllers with tweaked proliferated powers.

3. Stalkers revamped: When using Assassin strike outside of hide, it will work differently and can't be interrupted so it can be a part of your attack chain.

4. New midlevel story arcs for both heroes and villains.

5. The whole selling randomized stuff "Super Pack" thing.

6. Gravity Control has been improved.

Other stuff too.

Brainiac4

01-16-2012, 07:12 AM

I'm looking forward to Incarnate content for small teams. Dangerosa and I mostly play as a duo, and have not been eager to go after Incarnate content with a PUG.

Balance

01-16-2012, 02:50 PM

I'm looking forward to Incarnate content for small teams. Dangerosa and I mostly play as a duo, and have not been eager to go after Incarnate content with a PUG.
It's available in the VIP beta now, if you want to check it out. I won't go into details while it's still officially closed, but I don't think you will be disappointed.

Mister Rik

01-17-2012, 11:24 PM

So ... forming a supergroup. Is inviting members like inviting somebody to a guild in WoW, in that the character needs to be logged in to receive an invite? Or can I form a SG and then invite my alts via mail or some other method? It appears I don't need to do the signature-gathering thing like WoW, so I'm curious if other aspects work differently as well.

I realize that there wouldn't be much benefit to a one-player SG, but would amuse (for lack of a better term) me to have a small group of characters with a shared costume theme, each one with a different primary color (think Power Rangers).

Der Trihs

01-18-2012, 01:50 AM

So ... forming a supergroup. Is inviting members like inviting somebody to a guild in WoW, in that the character needs to be logged in to receive an invite? Or can I form a SG and then invite my alts via mail or some other method? Sadly, you need to have a member logged in, so you need someone else to invite your own alts. Players have complained about this for ages; I truly hate having to bug total strangers to help me invite alts (you invite them, then you switch to an alt, they invite the alt, then they are supposed to quit). Especially since I need to lock down everything in the base in case they aren't trustworthy.

I realize that there wouldn't be much benefit to a one-player SG, but would amuse (for lack of a better term) me to have a small group of characters with a shared costume theme, each one with a different primary color (think Power Rangers).I have a bunch of one person SGs actually. They are useful for storage, teleporters and easy transfer of things between characters (you can e-mail stuff but it's slower).

Mister Rik

01-18-2012, 10:04 PM

Ah well, I guess I don't want to go through the hassle, at least not at this point.

Brainiac4

01-18-2012, 10:44 PM

One of us can help you - better than total strangers.

I know of two SDMB groups - C.E.C.I.L on Virtue and Urban Legends on Protector, hero and villain respectively. Both have nice bases courtesy of Culex, Lok, Balance and others, and I drop in and pay the rent on the bases occasionally. :)

Der Trihs

01-18-2012, 11:34 PM

There's also CECIL branches on Justice & Guardian.

Mister Rik

01-19-2012, 01:51 AM

Ooo, my main is on Justice ...

My global handle is @Mister Rik

Lok

01-19-2012, 01:23 PM

There's also CECIL branches on Justice & Guardian.

There are actually CECIL branches on most the English language servers. Most only have a few members and not much in the way of a base, but they are there. Of course, for most of them, I am the only one with a member, and I don't get online much these days due to work. But I can make an effort if someone really wants in one.

Brainiac4

01-19-2012, 07:21 PM

Mister Rik

01-19-2012, 09:56 PM

Here's what I have, by server, at least the ones that I play somewhat "regularly":

Justice

"Mains"
Flaminatrix - Mutation, Fire Blast/Fire Manipulation Blaster (Hero), level 36
Bruised Violet - Magic, Dark Melee/Dark Armor Brute (Villain), level 26

"Alts"
Incinerata - Science, Fiery Melee/Fiery Aura Scrapper (Hero), level 12
Alternat - Science, Radiation Blast/Energy Manipulation Blaster (Hero), level 11
Jouleiana - Technology, Energy Blast/Energy Manipulation Blaster (Villain), level 10

Plus several "once in a while" characters.

Liberty

"Mains"
Cobalt Claw - Science, Claws/Invulnerability Scrapper (Hero), level 24
White Orchid - Magic, Energy Melee/Energy Aura Brute (Hero), level 16

"Alts"
Ankheza - Magic, Energy Blast/Electricity Manipulation Blaster (Hero), level 13

Plus several "once in a while" characters.

Exalted

"Mains"
Psychosa - Science, Psychic Blast/Mental Manipulation Blaster (Villain), level 17
Shocking Pink - Science, Electrical Melee/Electric Armor Scrapper (Hero), level 13

Bunch of minor characters

Defiant

Teardrop - Mutation, Super Strength/Invulnerability Brute (Hero), level 13

The only ones who are already in SGs are Flaminatrix (some longass phrase in Latin that nobody is going to remember when asked "What SG are you in?" and why do people think they're being clever when they do that anyway?) and Psychosa (EXALTED Empire).

Lok

01-19-2012, 11:51 PM

I have characters on most servers - all of the original US ones, at least, and two on Defiant. If we're on at the same time, Lok, I can join the SG as well and help with the inviting duties. And occasionally pay base rent. :)

Unfortunately for me, these days just finding the time to get online is hard. Mostly on the road, and my laptop is not really up for the game these days, when I can find a connection. It has been 3 months since I was last on at all. :(

Here's what I have, by server, at least the ones that I play somewhat "regularly":

Best way to keep track of your characters is City Info Tracker (http://cit.cohtitan.com/) in the Titan Network. Even if you don't care about badges, it is an easy way to keep track of what you have where. And to share it (http://cit.cohtitan.com/profile/900) without having to do more than paste the URL.

The Mad Hermit

01-20-2012, 07:04 AM

I'm still out there on Victory; I wouldn't mind joining up with a few of you if I could ever find you. I just got my main all his Tier 4 incarnate powers.

Onomatopoeia

01-20-2012, 11:47 AM

I'm still out there on Victory; I wouldn't mind joining up with a few of you if I could ever find you. I just got my main all his Tier 4 incarnate powers.Speaking of incarnate powers, is there an easy to understand, comprehensive incarnate powers guide? At this point, I have about 8 50s across a number of servers, all of whom have opened their incarnate slots. However, only one of my 50s has actually begun slotting Cardio.

At this point, I play, maybe, once or twice a month for an hour or two, so I'm not nearly as invested as most other players. Consequently, I'm not as up on the newer features of the game either.

Balance

01-20-2012, 12:15 PM

Speaking of incarnate powers, is there an easy to understand, comprehensive incarnate powers guide? At this point, I have about 8 50s across a number of servers, all of whom have opened their incarnate slots. However, only one of my 50s has actually begun slotting Cardio.
The Paragon Wiki Incarnate System article (http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Incarnate_System) is a good place to start. It offers a good overview, and has linked articles on each slot and its associated powers. The slot articles have most of the numbers on the powers, except for actual damage figures (except the Lore article, which includes live-game DPS information on each power). If you want damage numbers, you can use the in-game info popup for the power--just send a tell to yourself with the power name in square brackets (e.g. [Pyronic Total Core Judgement]) and click on the bolded words in the chat pane.

Mister Rik

01-20-2012, 12:29 PM

Best way to keep track of your characters is City Info Tracker (http://cit.cohtitan.com/) in the Titan Network. Even if you don't care about badges, it is an easy way to keep track of what you have where. And to share it (http://cit.cohtitan.com/profile/900) without having to do more than paste the URL.
Hey, that's awesome. Here's my list, then (http://cit.cohtitan.com/profile/20100)! I've only got my Justice characters in there so far. Sadly, it appears that once again, the Titan Sentinel utility is Windows-only, so I can't do any automatic detail tracking, and I don't feel up to manually entering badges and stuff. The pictures I uploaded are just from the Character Selection screen. I'll upload some in-game shots if I can get any I like (though the gloomy lighting in the Rogue Isles might not result in anything better. Is there a way to upload more than one per character, so that I can show all their different costumes?

So my main villain, Bruised Violet, was doing Dean McArthur's quests in Sharkhead and ... wow, is this guy a "creep" or what? BV told him about her clone, and he says, out loud, "I was just imagining the two of you together..." (I'll have to do his quests on a male villain to find out what he says in that scenario). Then on top of that he's an adult man who talks in teenage slang and his cell phone ringtones are pop songs that would appeal to high school girls ... It's like the NPC was specifically designed to creep out female players with female characters. I imagine this guy spending a lot of time "in his bunk". OTOH, his name, "Dean", is mine and my dad's middle name, and he sent me to talk to a guy named Leonard, which is my dad's first name, which I found amusing.

Costume parts: I'm wishing there were more options for non-armored, non-robotic boots with flat soles for female characters. I'm having a hard time imagining a super-speed or super-leaping character getting around in tall heels. The flat-soled boots that are available don't often match up well with the rest of the character's costume.

I'm curious about a particular visual effect I've seen now and then on other characters. Basically, it's the "sparks flying" effect that you see when a character uses super speed, except I'm seeing this same effect on characters that are flying/leaping through the air. At first I thought it was Rocket Boots, but then I got a pair of those and discovered they have a completely different effect. Does super speed eventually let you launch yourself long distances and high in the air? Or am I seeing the Afterburner effect from the Flight pool? Or something else entirely?

Balance

01-20-2012, 02:35 PM

I'm curious about a particular visual effect I've seen now and then on other characters. Basically, it's the "sparks flying" effect that you see when a character uses super speed, except I'm seeing this same effect on characters that are flying/leaping through the air. At first I thought it was Rocket Boots, but then I got a pair of those and discovered they have a completely different effect. Does super speed eventually let you launch yourself long distances and high in the air? Or am I seeing the Afterburner effect from the Flight pool? Or something else entirely?There are several things it could be:

1) You can run Super Speed concurrently with other travel powers, so a character can have the glowing yellow Super Speed feet while flying.

2) It could be one of the Prestige Sprints, which are alternate versions of the Sprint power that add special effects. "Quick" leaves a spark-like trail, I think, but it doesn't look at all like Super Speed.

3) It could be a path aura. The Blazing Path Aura (http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Paragon_Rewards_Costumes#Blazing_Path_Aura) leaves a trail of fire behind you. It's one of the Paragon Rewards you can get with your tokens.

Quimby

01-20-2012, 02:41 PM

Mister Rik

01-20-2012, 03:03 PM

There are several things it could be:

1) You can run Super Speed concurrently with other travel powers, so a character can have the glowing yellow Super Speed feet while flying.

2) It could be one of the Prestige Sprints, which are alternate versions of the Sprint power that add special effects. "Quick" leaves a spark-like trail, I think, but it doesn't look at all like Super Speed.

3) It could be a path aura. The Blazing Path Aura (http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Paragon_Rewards_Costumes#Blazing_Path_Aura) leaves a trail of fire behind you. It's one of the Paragon Rewards you can get with your tokens.

It may be a character with both Super Speed and Super Jump. After Fitness became inherent, I had room to do that on at least one of my characters.

Hmm. I going to guess, then, that it's people using Super Speed along with Fly or Super Leap. Because it looks exactly like the Super Speed effect. I looked at that Blazing Path picture, and that looks totally different.

Thanks :)

Der Trihs

01-20-2012, 06:08 PM

Hmm. I going to guess, then, that it's people using Super Speed along with Fly or Super Leap. Some people do that, including me. I have several characters who use Fly or SJ as their main travel power, and SS as essentially a stealth power (unlike the actual power "Stealth", it doesn't slow you down).

Mister Rik

01-20-2012, 07:23 PM

Some people do that, including me. I have several characters who use Fly or SJ as their main travel power, and SS as essentially a stealth power (unlike the actual power "Stealth", it doesn't slow you down).

Ooo, I can already see how that would be handy. Say, avoiding those damn snipers who like to take potshots at me when I fly around Founders Falls and I can never figure out where they are so I can beat their asses...

Balance

01-20-2012, 07:49 PM

Ooo, I can already see how that would be handy. Say, avoiding those damn snipers who like to take potshots at me when I fly around Founders Falls and I can never figure out where they are so I can beat their asses...
It only helps a little with that. Snipers all have a perception buff, so they can see through stealth. It just means you have to be a little closer for them to notice you.

Lute Skywatcher

01-20-2012, 08:21 PM

My toons. (http://cit.cohtitan.com/profile/20103)

Mister Rik

01-23-2012, 12:05 PM

I just finished that Red Coral mission arc on my main villain, Bruised Violet. That was ... epic. Especially the ending!

I've gotten more of my characters into CIT, along with uploading in-game images to replace several of the Character Selection Screen shots I uploaded initially. I've noticed one oddity with that site, though - it sometimes arbitrarily decides for itself whether a character is a Hero or Villain, regardless of what I specify. If you look at my list (http://cit.cohtitan.com/profile/20100), check out the characters "Chowderhead" and "Triple-N". The first is a villain, but has been given the "Hero" thumbnail; the second is a hero, but has been given the "Villain" thumbnail, (though the small icons to the right of the thumbnails show the correct factions). This has happened with several other characters. If it was just the thumbnail it wouldn't be a problem, but while attempting to manually enter badges for one of my heroes I discovered it was giving me the list of villain badge names (for those badges that can be earned by either side, but have different names). Example: My hero character, Teardrop (http://cit.cohtitan.com/character/131889). Click on one of the "Toggle Details" links, and you'll see the "Villain" versions of the badge names. Obviously, this makes trying to find the badge names very difficult. I had to open the Badge Hunter (http://www.badge-hunter.com/) site in another tab, to the page that showed the Hero/Villain badges side-by-side so I could choose the right ones. Pain in the neck. I don't think I'm going to bother entering badges any more.

I got some good advice in Help chat the other night, regarding enhancements. I'd been getting frustrated at the way Brutes in particular seem to just burn through Endurance, and somebody told me to slot 3 "Endurance Modification" enhancements into Stamina. OTOH, I'm kind of puzzled about why some powersets drain Endurance so badly while others don't. For example, my Fire Blast/Fire Manipulation hero, Flaminatrix (http://cit.cohtitan.com/character/131793), has never had problems with running out of Endurance, even at low levels (leading to my wondering why those Breath of Air inspirations dropped so frequently). Meanwhile, my Assault Rifle/Devices blaster has to stop after every 3-4 enemies to let her Endurance recover. My Dark Melee/Dark Armor brute runs out of Endurance all the time, while my Super Strength/Invulnerability brute has no Endurance issues.

Also, is Kinetic Melee just a weak powerset? I was playing with that power set last night and was astonished at how many times I had to hit the bad guys before they would go down.

Mister Rik

01-24-2012, 04:11 PM

Well, that was the easiest 15 million Influence I've ever acquired, though it seems I've obtained it due to a programming glitch or oversight, so I'm not going to push it for more (and may report it as a "bug" so that I don't get busted for an "exploit" or something).

Basically, I wanted to change one of my main's costumes, since I've just unlocked the "Tech Sleek" armor set. But a complete costume redesign was going to cost about 800k. I remembered somebody here (I think) mentioning switching over to a level 1 secondary spec to avoid the high prices, so I flipped over to the secondary spec and proceeded with the costume change. It showed me a "price" of -7,600,000 Inf. And when I continued on it gave me 7.6 million Inf, while failing to actually change my costume. So I tried again, and got another 7.6 million, and again no costume change. I went from having a little over 19 million Inf to 34.3 million just like that.

Mister Rik

01-24-2012, 07:09 PM

Well, disregard that. The "bonus" 15.2 mill went away on its own.

Mister Rik

01-29-2012, 02:04 PM

I just came across this thread on the CoH forums:

How to Suck at CoH/CoV (http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=250783)

It was originally posted a year ago, so some of you may have already seen it, but I wanted to share it just in case. It's quite possibly one of the funniest things I've read on a forum in a long time :p

My favorite bit, in the section on herding enemies while in a group:

"Advanced players may find it more rewarding to die quickly while out of line of sight of the rest of the team, or while trying to bring the spawn back to the team. Ideally, the tank will die precisely as everyone else starts fighting, allowing aggro to be spread evenly among the blaster."
(bolding mine)

Lute Skywatcher

01-29-2012, 04:14 PM

Balance

01-29-2012, 06:35 PM

One of the worst PUGs I've ever been in did just that. All the glass cannons wandered off, then started saying things like "why doesn't our tank have Taunt?"

Hello? I have taunt but I'm over here under this pile of mobs! Dropped those idiots when I got to the hospital.
Try a team like that from an empath's perspective. If I am to help you, you must be close to me, or at least in line of sight. When you split up so much that it is not possible to have LOS to more than on of you at a time, I can only help one of you...and frankly, if you're that stupid, there's only so much I can do. Clear Mind, alas, only works on the character.

Brainiac4

01-29-2012, 06:46 PM

I got some good advice in Help chat the other night, regarding enhancements. I'd been getting frustrated at the way Brutes in particular seem to just burn through Endurance, and somebody told me to slot 3 "Endurance Modification" enhancements into Stamina. OTOH, I'm kind of puzzled about why some powersets drain Endurance so badly while others don't. For example, my Fire Blast/Fire Manipulation hero, Flaminatrix (http://cit.cohtitan.com/character/131793), has never had problems with running out of Endurance, even at low levels (leading to my wondering why those Breath of Air inspirations dropped so frequently). Meanwhile, my Assault Rifle/Devices blaster has to stop after every 3-4 enemies to let her Endurance recover. My Dark Melee/Dark Armor brute runs out of Endurance all the time, while my Super Strength/Invulnerability brute has no Endurance issues.

Also, is Kinetic Melee just a weak powerset? I was playing with that power set last night and was astonished at how many times I had to hit the bad guys before they would go down.
Slotting End Mod is one of those fundamental things that we forget to mention because it's so important, if you know what I mean. Sorry we didn't go over that. While we're on the subject of enhancements, you are (I hope) aware that Enhancement Diversification means that you get diminishing returns from enhancements when you slot more than 3 (or more than 2, for high-level IOs) enhancements, right?

I am going to guess that the reason you're seeing some characters have more End issues than others is due to toggles - Dark Armor has lots of toggle powers, which continuously drain Endurance, while Invulnerability has a number of inherent powers that are simply always on at no End cost.

Your /Dev blaster is probably running Targeting Drone, which drains End all the time that it is on. To counteract this, slot and Endurance Reduction enhancement (or two, if you can afford the slots) in toggle powers, along with Endurance Modification in Stamina.

Hasten also creates Endurance issues, in two ways: by decreasing recharge time, it lets you fire off powers more often (and thus increase endurance cost per unit of time), and it costs End when it wears off. Don't bother slotting End Reduction in it, though - just slot 3xRecharge and call it good. :)

Kinetic Melee is decent when fully slotted, but its damage type is smash, and many/most low-level enemies are resistant to smash and lethal damage. I have a 35 Kinetic Melee/Shield scrapper, and he's... okay. Damage output is pretty good, but I find the attack animations annoying.

Jophiel

01-29-2012, 07:05 PM

Your /Dev blaster is probably running Targeting Drone, which drains End all the time that it is on. To counteract this, slot and Endurance Reduction enhancement (or two, if you can afford the slots) in toggle powers, along with Endurance Modification in Stamina.
Also be sure to use Endurance Reductions in your attack powers. I've heard it suggested that an EndRx in an attack is worth 2-3 toggles.

For example, Buckshot costs 10.192 endurance per activation and can be activated every 8 seconds. If you hit it every time it refreshes, that's 1.27 endurance per second while you're in combat.

Targeting Drone consumes 0.156 endurance per second. I believe it's per second but toggles vary on how often they 'activate'. Even if it was five times a second though, that would still only be 0.78 per second and it's not 'activating' anywhere near that.

You almost certainly aren't running out of endurance when you're just standing around or moving between missions (unless you use Teleport), you're running out in combat. A 30% endurance reduction enhancement is worth a lot more in Buckshot than in Targeting Drone. The down side, of course, is giving up the slot's potential accuracy, damage, recharge, etc. You can work around this by using the Invention system if you have access to it. Otherwise, I'd just use the slot anyway and comfort yourself in knowing that you won't be doing ANY damage if you're out of endurance and can't fire off any attacks.

This doesn't mean not to use EndRx in your toggles but realize that the major offenders are primarily your click powers, not your toggles.

Der Trihs

01-29-2012, 07:25 PM

Also; for Dark Armor the biggest culprit for high endurance cost is Dark Regeneration. It's a great power but an endurance pig; I slot the equivalent of 2 SO Endurance Reduction in it as soon as I can.

Mister Rik

01-29-2012, 07:35 PM

While we're on the subject of enhancements, you are (I hope) aware that Enhancement Diversification means that you get diminishing returns from enhancements when you slot more than 3 (or more than 2, for high-level IOs) enhancements, right?
I've seen the loading-screen tip that says you can slot multiples of the same enhancement, but there will be diminishing returns.

I am going to guess that the reason you're seeing some characters have more End issues than others is due to toggles - Dark Armor has lots of toggle powers, which continuously drain Endurance, while Invulnerability has a number of inherent powers that are simply always on at no End cost.
That makes sense. I figured toggle vs. auto had something to do with it.

Kinetic Melee is decent when fully slotted, but its damage type is smash, and many/most low-level enemies are resistant to smash and lethal damage. I have a 35 Kinetic Melee/Shield scrapper, and he's... okay. Damage output is pretty good, but I find the attack animations annoying.
Those "windups" are pretty ... amusing.

Oh, I finally have all of my characters entered over at CIT, complete with in-game screenshots: http://cit.cohtitan.com/profile/20100

ETA: I just upgraded my system to Mac OS X 10.7 "Lion". Holy crap, what a difference improved drivers make. This game runs smooth like butter now, and I've been able to "up" some of my graphics settings.

Onomatopoeia

01-31-2012, 09:02 AM

Wait. The CityInfoTracker application works on a Mac?

Mister Rik

01-31-2012, 11:05 AM

Wait. The CityInfoTracker application works on a Mac?
Nope. I'm just using the CIT site to keep track of all my characters in one place, so I enter and update them manually. And since I have to update them manually, I'm only keeping track of badges on a handful of "main" characters.

I was playing one of my low-level brutes, Teardrop (http://cit.cohtitan.com/character/131889), last night in Steel Canyon and annoyingly ended up getting two consecutive street-sweeping missions from the same contact. Both missions had the same objective: "Defeat 10 Council", and the same basic reason: "The Council is causing trouble in Steel Canyon..." Lemme say I'm not sure why the contact needed me to deal with this — the 5th Column seemed to have the situation well in hand :p Seriously, Council mobs were as scarce as hen's teeth. I found a very few lieutenants standing on boxes (doing their recruitment speeches, I guess), but other than that every Council mob I found was either unconscious on the ground, surrounded by a squad of 5th Column, or else engaged in a running firefight with the 5th Column. The result was I had to beat up 3-5 5th Column mobs for every Council mob I defeated.

I'm working on putting together the Devastation IO set on Flaminatrix (http://cit.cohtitan.com/character/131793). I'm curious about slotting the IO sets - am I better off slotting them all into the same power? I know it doesn't matter for the purpose of getting the set bonuses, but I can see that putting them all into the same power will end up making that one power vastly more powerful.

I'm thinking "Yes, put them all in the same power", mainly because the boosts on an individual piece of the set are smaller than the boosts from a same-level, single-stat SO. For example, If I have a +ACC/+DAM IO, the boosts it provides to those by itself are only 24%, while the individual ACC and DAM SOs provide 38% or thereabouts. SO since the IO is going to have to replace an SO I already had slotted, slotting just the one IO into a power is going to decrease something, no matter which SO I replace with the IO. But if I slot all the IOs into the same power, by the time I have the full set I'll end up greatly increasing everything.

Did that make any sense?

Jophiel

01-31-2012, 11:21 AM

Invention IOs have to be in the same power for the set bonus. You can't split Kinetic Combat between three different powers for instance and get the bonus.

You can use Devastation in multiple powers and stack the set bonuses (up to five times) such as "Minor Increase Accuracy" x5. I just made that bonus up since I don't know Devastation's bonuses off hand.

Another tactic is to forgo the set bonuses and mix different IO sets. For instance, using a 30% Damage/Accuracy/Recharge from two different ranged sets into a single ranged power to get +60% Dmg/Acc/Rchg between two enhancement slots. I haven't played for a while so I don't know what the market is like. Last I played, low level enhancements were hard to find so this "frankenslotting" was getting difficult to do cheaply.

Balance

01-31-2012, 12:15 PM

I'm working on putting together the Devastation IO set on Flaminatrix (http://cit.cohtitan.com/character/131793). I'm curious about slotting the IO sets - am I better off slotting them all into the same power? I know it doesn't matter for the purpose of getting the set bonuses, but I can see that putting them all into the same power will end up making that one power vastly more powerful.

I'm thinking "Yes, put them all in the same power", mainly because the boosts on an individual piece of the set are smaller than the boosts from a same-level, single-stat SO. For example, If I have a +ACC/+DAM IO, the boosts it provides to those by itself are only 24%, while the individual ACC and DAM SOs provide 38% or thereabouts. SO since the IO is going to have to replace an SO I already had slotted, slotting just the one IO into a power is going to decrease something, no matter which SO I replace with the IO. But if I slot all the IOs into the same power, by the time I have the full set I'll end up greatly increasing everything.

Did that make any sense?
I think a bit of clarification is in order: to get the set bonuses, the IOs must be in the same power. With that understanding, there are two main approaches to slotting IOs--slotting for bonuses and frankenslotting. Most strong builds go for a mix of the two.

Slotting for bonuses is straightforward. You try to put as many IOs of the same set in a power as possible, to get the maximum number of bonuses. Individual set bonuses are mostly rather puny, but they add up (at least until you have five of any given bonus--after that, no more of that bonus apply). It's often not the most efficient use of slots; many sets have enough of at least one enhancement type to put you past the point of diminishing returns for that type. It would be more efficient to use one or more of the slots to enhance some other factor, or to use the slot in a different power entirely.

Consider an extreme case, the Apocalypse purple IO set. Slotting all six of them adds up to 145.76% damage enhancement, but you only get to use 101.86% of that, due to diminishing returns. Meanwhile, the total accuracy enhancement in the power is 59.62%, the endurance discount is 33.13%, and the recharge reduction is 89.92% (and already beginning to diminish). In terms of simple power efficiency, you'd be better off enhancing accuracy and/or endurance reduction. You're basically spending a slot to get the sixth set bonus (which is a fairly unimpressive +5% defense to Psi damage).

That's where frankenslotting comes in; it's mixing and matching IO set enhancements in a given power to maximize the enhancement to that power. You'll pick up some set bonuses along the way, but they're not the focus. Looking at the Apocalypse set again, we could ditch the pure Damage IO from the set, and replace it with the Accuracy/Damage/Endurance IO from Thunderstrike. That brings the damage down to 97.09%, but increases the accuracy to 79.74% and the endurance reduction to 54.33%. By sacrificing ~4% damage and a weak set bonus, you've increased the total enhancement of the power by 36.55% (and probably saved a couple hundred million influence, besides--Thunderstrike is an Uncommon, while Apocalypse is a Very Rare).

Looking at the Devastation set you're working on, we can see that if you slot the full set, at level 50, you'd have the following values:

Acc 66.25
Dam 97.89 (diminished from 119.25)
End 45.05
Rech 66.25
Total: 275.44
Set Bonuses: 12% Regen (good), 2.251% Health (not bad), 3% Damage buff (not bad for a blaster), 3.3% Hold resist (weak), 3.75% Defense to Psi (weak)

Swap the Acc/Dam and Dam/End IOs for the Thunderstrike Acc/Dam/End and Dam/End/Rech IOs, and you get:

Acc 60.95
Dam 96.3 (diminished from 108.65)
End 60.95
Rech 85.71
Total: 303.91
Set Bonuses: 12% Regen (good), 2.251% Health (not bad), 3% Damage buff (pretty good for a blaster), 2% End recovery (weak)

So, that trades in a little accuracy, a tiny amount of damage, and two weak bonuses for substantially improved endurance reduction and recharge, plus one weak bonus. It may also save you a couple of million influence, because the Thunderstrike IOs don't require rare salvage to make. (The recipes may cost more, though; Thunderstrike is a pretty popular set.) This is a pretty good trade, especially since the power will have a Hold proc from Devastation--you'll want to put it in a fast power and fire it often to make the most of the proc, so recharge and endurance reduction are particularly valuable.

Sometimes it's worth trading off the efficiency of individual powers for set bonuses. My main, for example, has a build that is designed to provide him with a lot of ranged defense. As a result, I have a couple of full Thunderstrike sets slotted to get the 2.5% ranged defense from the 6th set bonus, even though that leaves the powers seriously over-enhanced for damage.

It's a good idea to plan out your build in advance, and have an overall goal for it. Look at the things the character has trouble with, and aim for enhancements and bonuses that will improve those areas. If you get clobbered a lot, look for defense bonuses; if you run out of endurance often, look for endurance reduction enhancements and unique IOs that give endurance bonuses.

Mister Rik

01-31-2012, 01:35 PM

Okay, thanks for the explanations. It looks like I may need to run the Invention tutorial missions again, just for a "refresher course" (it's been a while since I last did that). I don't remember seeing the part where IO sets had to be slotted in the same power; I just remember something about how an individual set IO was "unique", which I misunderstood to mean a character could only have one of that particular IO, total. Or is all that explained somewhere other than the tutorial at the University?

Fortunately, I had already slotted the first two Devastation set IO's I've obtained (the Acc/Dam and Dam/Rech) into the same power

Bosstone

01-31-2012, 01:53 PM

There's varying grades of unique. The most common version is that you can't have the exact same named IO in one power. So you can't have two or more Devastation Acc/Dams in one power, but you can have as many Devastation Acc/Dams as you have powers that will take it, one to a power.

Then there are genuinely Unique IOs. These provide significant bonuses, such as +3% Defense (trust me, it matters), added Regeneration, added Recovery, and so on. Also, Purple/Very Rare set IOs are Unique.

Common IOs (the ones that are just Invention: Accuracy) can be slotted without restriction.

Mister Rik

01-31-2012, 02:08 PM

+3% Defense (trust me, it matters)
Heh, yeah, my blaster will take all the +Defense she can get :D

Bosstone

01-31-2012, 02:22 PM

I forgot to add that you can only have one genuinely Unique IO in an entire build. That probably goes without saying, but given the degrees of 'unique' that distinction should probably be made anyway.

Quimby

01-31-2012, 02:24 PM

Balance

01-31-2012, 03:41 PM

I have been playing since 2008 and never knew you can use the same IO set on more than one power. I knew you could mix and match but I thought once you had a certain set IO you couldn't have another copy of that same one...you learn something new everyday!
Yep. Multiple copies of a set help to build up specific bonuses to serious levels. My main is an empath with over 20% defense to ranged attacks with his toggles off, thanks in part to multiple Thunderstrike sets. The purple IO sets work the way you thought, though--every enhancement in them is a unique, so you can only have one copy of each slotted in a build.

Mekhazzio

01-31-2012, 05:32 PM

Also be sure to use Endurance Reductions in your attack powers. I've heard it suggested that an EndRx in an attack is worth 2-3 toggles.

For example, Buckshot costs 10.192 endurance per activation and can be activated every 8 seconds. If you hit it every time it refreshes, that's 1.27 endurance per second while you're in combat.How you play is a factor too. Buckshot eats a decent amount of endurance for pretty low damage, but if you're hitting multiple targets at once with it, it winds up saving you endurance in the long run compared to if you you were plinking them down one by one with Burst, Slug, or the worst offender, Snipe. If you're having endurance issues with Assault Rifle, you're probably not using its area attacks very well. Because of their assorted limitations, Flamethrower, Full Auto and (especially) Ignite are very cheap on endurance for attacks of their damage level.

Mister Rik

01-31-2012, 07:07 PM

How you play is a factor too. Buckshot eats a decent amount of endurance for pretty low damage, but if you're hitting multiple targets at once with it, it winds up saving you endurance in the long run compared to if you you were plinking them down one by one with Burst, Slug, or the worst offender, Snipe. If you're having endurance issues with Assault Rifle, you're probably not using its area attacks very well. Because of their assorted limitations, Flamethrower, Full Auto and (especially) Ignite are very cheap on endurance for attacks of their damage level.

In the case of the AR character I was talking about, she's only level 11 or so, so she only has a handfull of low-level "powers". Thought I do find it somewhat illogical that a character that uses a mechanical device like a rifle would use Endurance faster than a character like my mutant fire/fire blaster, who is presumably generating her powers herself.

Lute Skywatcher

01-31-2012, 07:18 PM

In the case of the AR character I was talking about, she's only level 11 or so, so she only has a handfull of low-level "powers". Thought I do find it somewhat illogical that a character that uses a mechanical device like a rifle would use Endurance faster than a character like my mutant fire/fire blaster, who is presumably generating her powers herself.I hear those rifles have lots of recoil. ;)

Bosstone

01-31-2012, 07:29 PM

Balance

01-31-2012, 07:56 PM

Ammo. Gotta stop and reload.
Or let the barrel cool, or swap ammo--"endurance" can be treated as an abstraction of all the things that mean roughly "You can't attack constantly."

I do find AR frustrating, though, in part due to the endurance use. My AR blaster, Liberty Valence, is stuck at level 19--probably permanently. I've played a /AR defender to 31, but his primary is Traps, so he plays completely differently from an AR/Elec blaster.

Mekhazzio

01-31-2012, 08:31 PM

Assault Rifle does take a long time to get going. Buckshot is decent, but insufficient when it's your only AOE. The Grenade is at Energy Blast levels of downright awful, and while Beanbag is a much-appreciated hard control in a set that otherwise has zilch for defense, it's another early power slot that doesn't do the core job of actually killing stuff. It takes until Flamethrower before you start to see how the set will actually play in its crowd-sweeping maturity. Even the last tier power, which for most other blasters is just a gimmicky nuke, winds up being a staple power that alters your entire gameplay. It's a late bloomer, but well worth it if you enjoy murdering hordes of things.

Brainiac4

01-31-2012, 10:26 PM

I have yet to get an AR/ blaster past perhaps level 12, but I know Culex is a big fan - one of her early 50s was an AR/Dev who could routinely solo big spawns of +3 mobs.

I like blasters (my first 50 was a Fire/Ice blaster), but I think my favorite AT is Controller - there is something very satisfying about rendering groups of enemies helpless while your minions (in which I include your teammates) pound on them. WoW "crowd control" is laughable compared to the spectacle of a high-level controller. :D

Mister Rik

02-15-2012, 07:29 PM

Without giving away any spoilers, is the connection between Penelope Yin and the Clockwork King ever fully explained?

Quimby

02-15-2012, 07:36 PM

Without giving away any spoilers, is the connection between Penelope Yin and the Clockwork King ever fully explained?

While I am far from an expert, I am pretty sure the answer is no. At least to date.

Quasimodem

02-16-2012, 01:40 PM

...... here he is: http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff71/Drummerboy49/wolkiecoh.jpg. But I'm stuck. where do I log out of this screen/start playing? I can go to a normal screen by clicking the windows key, but this screen stays.

Any help?

Guess y'all know what the "W" stands for, right? ;)

Thanks

Q

PS: Solved. For some reason the dumb game loaded in safe mode, and I had to start all over loading my toon. I also spent 5 bucks to buy 400 points to unlock a couple of things I wanted him to have.

I'll need a lot of time to figure this one out, guys. I guess there's a tutorial somewhere, so I'll read it and and start over.

Bosstone

02-16-2012, 01:54 PM

Quasimodem

02-16-2012, 02:17 PM

Thanks, Boss

Good to see you back - even if it isn't in WoW!;)

Q

Balance

02-16-2012, 02:19 PM

Without giving away any spoilers, is the connection between Penelope Yin and the Clockwork King ever fully explained?
Is there something to explain? They're both psychics, and they talk to each other. Penny is a sweet girl, and is nice to him. That makes her the closest thing to a friend he's got, and he's protective of her. Of course, he's also crazy and obsessive, so there's a definite creepy stalker element, but that's all I get out of the two occasions their relationship comes up in the game.

Penny is going to show up more in the future, though, so there could be further developments.

Mister Rik

02-16-2012, 05:04 PM

Is there something to explain?

I was curious because during the mission arc to rescue Mr. Yin from the Lost, one of the clues I got from a defeated Lost said that they'd only kidnapped Mr. Yin to get leverage on Penelope (so she's somehow important to them), and then said, "There's a reason the Brain-in-Brass protects her." ("Brain-in-Brass" being, I assume, the Clockwork King).

Aside from Penelope telepathically leading Praetorian characters (Resistance, anyway) through a mission arc, I haven't seen any other mention of her outside Faultline; that is, the Yin/Lost/Clockwork story just isn't developed any further as far as I can see.

Balance

02-16-2012, 05:47 PM

Aside from Penelope telepathically leading Praetorian characters (Resistance, anyway) through a mission arc, I haven't seen any other mention of her outside Faultline; that is, the Yin/Lost/Clockwork story just isn't developed any further as far as I can see.
Have you played in the Rikti War Zone yet? Some of the Faultline characters make another appearance there.

Onomatopoeia

02-16-2012, 05:47 PM

Yes, if you notice the lock and shopping cart icons, that means there's things you selected you don't own and you need to purchase through the store.

Be very careful what you do in this game, Quasi. It's not like WoW, where you pay your subscription and you get everything in the game. It's an a la carte system, and there's a bunch of stuff that requires purchasing, even if you have a subscription. If you don't watch out for things that ask you to purchase, you might find yourself doling out money left and right without meaning to or wanting to.I'm happy to say that after purchasing the game 7 years ago, the only thing I've ever paid for, besides my monthly subscription that is, is the Going Rogue update. I can do everything I want in-game without purchasing any of the chécheres they want us to buy.

Mister Rik

02-16-2012, 05:54 PM

Have you played in the Rikti War Zone yet? Some of the Faultline characters make another appearance there.

Haven't made it there yet. I need to, seeing as how my main is level 41 now.

Brainiac4

02-17-2012, 07:10 AM

I'm happy to say that after purchasing the game 7 years ago, the only thing I've ever paid for, besides my monthly subscription that is, is the Going Rogue update. I can do everything I want in-game without purchasing any of the chécheres they want us to buy.

I'm in almost the same boat, although I did lay out for a couple of the Super Boosters. I prefer paying the monthly fee to the pay-per-element method. I understand why Paragon moved to the freemium model, but I'm glad that they kept the subscription option. I think it's far more cost-effective - for $15 per month, I get 12 slots on every server, a bunch of ATs (I think Premium players are paying to unlock controller, mastermind, warshade, peacebringer, widow, spider), invention system, Mission Architect, etc.

I wonder what the lifecycle is for players - how many move from free to Premium to VIP. Would be interesting to know.

Mister Rik

02-20-2012, 04:17 PM

I rolled up a new blaster last night that's turning out to be a lot of fun. Her name is "Brain Cloud", and her powers are Psychic Blast and Darkness Manipulation. I've noticed that Penumbral Grasp seems to be a much more effective and accurate Immobilize than my main's Ring of Fire.

So I ran the mission for Sela Vermont in Atlas Park to recover the stolen anniversary gifts for Manticore & Sister Psyche, and I'm left wondering — is Synapse supposed to be somewhat socially inept? Because it seems to me that buying lingerie for another man's wife is something of a major faux pas. Poor Synapse just might end up with that "Gag Gift Arrow" where he doesn't want it :D

I had a fun coincidence yesterday. While browsing DeviantArt for CoH fan art, I came across a talented digital artist/CoH player named Golden Girl (http://goldengirlcoh.deviantart.com/art/Self-Portrait-206106925). Then, about half an hour later, I ran into her in-game, standing next to Ms. Liberty. She has some fun stuff there in her gallery (http://goldengirlcoh.deviantart.com/gallery/). A few of my favorites (click the pics to embiggen):

Old Spice commercial spoof with Calvin Scott (http://goldengirlcoh.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d46r7fz)

How Sister Psyche Shows Shock (http://goldengirlcoh.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d3lb6pb)

Resistance Language Guide (http://goldengirlcoh.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d46v9e7)

Also, what does the "PB" in "PBAoE" stand for? I don't think I've ever seen it spelled out.

Bosstone

02-20-2012, 04:37 PM

Also, what does the "PB" in "PBAoE" stand for? I don't think I've ever seen it spelled out.Point Blank Area of Effect. It refers to attacks that don't require a target and are instead centered around the player character.

The other flavors of AoE are Targeted AoE, which requires a target and deals what is effectively splash damage to those around it, and Location AoE, where it doesn't require an enemy target, but instead you pick a spot on the ground and that area temporarily becomes a damage zone. (Location AoEs use Targeted AoE IO sets.)

Quimby

02-20-2012, 04:54 PM

I always thought it was "Player Based" but I don't know where I got that. It meant the same thing as "Point Blank" though.

Mister Rik

02-20-2012, 09:48 PM

Jophiel

02-20-2012, 09:59 PM

I always thought it was "Player Based" but I don't know where I got that. It meant the same thing as "Point Blank" though.
Back in my Everquest days, it was called "player based" frequently enough that that's how I thought of it.

E-Sabbath

02-21-2012, 05:09 AM

When is the new Anniversary Badge supposed to be anyhow? Isn't it about this time?

Der Trihs

02-21-2012, 09:10 AM

When is the new Anniversary Badge supposed to be anyhow? Isn't it about this time?No, it's every April 28th (http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Anniversary).

Maus Magill

02-21-2012, 09:57 AM

I have the client downloading on the new box right now. How's Paragon city looking nowadays?

Der Trihs

02-21-2012, 10:17 AM

The upgraded version of Atlas is pretty nice.

Balance

02-21-2012, 11:07 AM

Thanks, that's been bugging me.

New question, spoilerboxed for those who haven't gotten this far (level 40+) yet:

When did Flambeaux "go bad"? She's been turning up in my Tip missions as a villain since I hit 40.
I gather that she actually turns in a vigilante tip mission (in the 30-40 range, I think), though she's clearly unstable right from the start. I've never actually seen that mission, though, since I've never actually switched sides with any of my characters.

Der Trihs

02-21-2012, 01:12 PM

I gather that she actually turns in a vigilante tip mission (in the 30-40 range, I think), though she's clearly unstable right from the start. I've never actually seen that mission, though, since I've never actually switched sides with any of my characters.
I recently did a mission like that. You show up to kill off some Nemesis bosses, and she goes berserk about you stealing her chance to make everyone love her again or some such. She's definitely a twitchy one.

Mister Rik

02-21-2012, 04:04 PM

Another odd thing about Flambeaux (no need to spoilerbox her name, I guess), is her entry on ParagonWiki:

"Flambeaux is a fiery-haired hero who developed a process to turn her body energies into biochemical fire she can project at her enemies." (bolding mine)

This intrigued me because, from what we see of her in the game, she clearly doesn't seem bright enough to have "developed" this process on her own. (Said to Proton: "Are you still doing science? But it's so boooring!")

I see a few possibilities:

• The wording on ParagonWiki is vague/misleading. Her "developing" the process might simply mean she's a mutant (though I don't think her origin has been mentioned) and she "developed" the process naturally when her mutation manifested.

• She actually stole the technology (or whatever) that gives her her powers, and claimed to invent it herself, though this again leads to my point that she doesn't seem bright enough for her claim to be convincing.

• She has multiple personality disorder. Her "dominant" personality is the narcissistic airhead we see in-game, while another personality is a brilliant scientist/inventor.

• She's actually quite intelligent, and clever enough to develop the process that gives her those powers. She's also a talented actress and her "narcissistic airhead" persona is a clever ruse.

• Her powers are the result of Crey experimentation, and her belief that she developed the powers herself are the result of Crey mind-wiping/memory replacement.

• She's a Nemesis automaton that developed it's own personality and "went rogue". Perhaps some glitch in her programming makes her think she's really human.

• She's a Nemesis automaton performing exactly as programmed.

I should post this on the official forums, I suppose...

Bosstone

02-21-2012, 04:10 PM

Or went through puberty and "developed" that way. :p

Balance

02-21-2012, 04:47 PM

Or she was a brilliant scientist before using her invention to give herself powers, and the process screwed up her biochemistry enough to turn her into a hyper-hormonal narcissistic nitwit.

Der Trihs

02-21-2012, 04:54 PM

Or she was a janitor at a mad-science lab, screwed with some of the widgets and accidentally gave herself powers. "I meant to do that!"

Mister Rik

02-21-2012, 05:41 PM

Or went through puberty and "developed" that way. :p

Or she was a janitor at a mad-science lab, screwed with some of the widgets and accidentally gave herself powers. "I meant to do that!"

For some reason, these remind me of this comic (http://pbfcomics.com/237/) :D

Mister Rik

02-25-2012, 01:46 PM

Geez, talk about aggravating - a bug has rendered my main completely unplayable. I was on my main and I clicked the button to go to the Paragon Market; the window opened, but before the content could load the game froze and then crashed with an "Assertion Failure" error. Now when I try to log in my main, she's stuck with the Paragon Market window open, which of course promptly freezes and crashes the client again. And of course this had to happen at 9:30 on a Friday night, so it means it will probably be Monday before anybody qualified can respond to my report on the forums.

*sigh* At least this seems to be confined to my main, and I have 40-odd other characters I can play in the meantime.

I did confirm the Paragon Market is the problem, though - I tried to open it on the Character Select screen and it immediately crashed the client. (Fortunately, it's not stuck open on the Character Select screen like it is on my main.) I'm guessing this is a bug introduced in Thursday's patch (there was a patch, right?), because I made some purchases from the Market on Tuesday or Wednesday with no trouble.

Mister Rik

02-28-2012, 09:13 PM

I had me a bunch of fun the last couple days, just playing with character creation. I got this idea to create an all-female "supergroup" (in name only, since I can only play one of them at a time) based on our solar system. Then I took screenshots and stitched them all together into a "team photo". I present "The Solars":

http://www.mister-rik.com/hosted/coh/The_Solars.jpg
(1.5MB file)

From left to right:

From the USA, Team Leader/Founder "Mother Sun" (Radiation Emission/Fire Blast Defender)

From the UK, "Girl Mercury" (Kinetic Melee/Super Reflexes Scrapper)

From the USA, "Venus Lass" (Gravity Control/Earth Assault Dominator)

From Germany, "Erdmädchen" (Plant Control/Storm Summoning Controller)

From the USA, "Ms. Mars" (Broadsword/Shield Brute)

From France, "Fille de Jupiter" (Ice Armor/Fiery Melee Tanker)

From the USA, "Saturn Signal" (Psychic Blast/Mental Manipulation Blaster)

From Mexico, "Princesa Urana" (Electrical Blast/Time Manipulation Corruptor)

From Canada, "Neptune's Niece" (Ice Blast/Ice Manipulation Blaster) She insists she really is Neptune's niece, but she's not fooling us. We have her papers. She was born in Saskatoon.

And finally, from ... well we're not sure. She doesn't talk much. We think she's still pissed off about the whole "Pluto isn't a planet anymore" thing, which hit the news about a week after she finished Mother Sun's program that gave her her powers. She's kind of surly and keeps to herself. Originally planning to call herself "Plutonium", now she sarcastically goes by "Notta Planet" (Dark Melee/Dark Armor Scrapper).

So anyway, it was fun creating all these ladies. However, I was rather miffed when I discovered that the Mars chest emblem is not available to female character (and likewise, male characters can't use the Venus symbol). This is an outrage!

Quimby

02-28-2012, 10:00 PM

That is pretty cool! Nice job!

Mister Rik

02-28-2012, 10:11 PM

Thanks!

Forgot to mention that those characters are all on Virtue.

Brainiac4

02-29-2012, 12:30 PM

Nice work, Mister Rik. You've clearly embraced the true spirit of City of Heroes - the greatest joy is in creating characters. :)

Mister Rik

02-29-2012, 01:22 PM

Nice work, Mister Rik. You've clearly embraced the true spirit of City of Heroes - the greatest joy is in creating characters. :)
Thanks :) And yeah, this was mostly an exercise in coming up with a theme and building characters around it. A few of those characters are unlikely to see much actual play time (in particular, Mother Sun, Erdmädchen, and Fille de Jupiter), simply because their archetypes (defender, controller, and tanker respectively) are more team-oriented and don't have enough damage output to solo effectively. I leveled Erdmädchen to 6 last night, and while her survivability was great, it just took way too long to defeat her enemies. And looking at her upcoming powers, there's not a whole lot of damage going on there.

OTOH, I also leveled Venus Lass to 6, and had an absolute blast doing it. I'd never tried the Gravity Control or Earth Assault PSs before, but I have to say they make a great combination.

Meanwhile, I'm still locked out of my main character, Flaminatrix (who had just hit 42 when everything went haywire). The Paragon Market is still insta-crashing my game client, and Flaminatrix is still stuck with the PM window open. I'm slowly working through the instructions Support gives me to try, and I know they have certain steps they need to go through. But it's frustrating when they're walking me through all sorts of fiddling with my graphics settings when it's clear even to me that this isn't a graphics issue. I mean, I can select a server where I have no characters, so that there is no 3D model of any kind on the Character Select screen, click the Store button, and promptly crash.

Brainiac4

02-29-2012, 03:53 PM

That is frustrating - you have my sympathy.

Regarding soloing some ATs - I suspect you'll find them more effective than you think if you give them a try. There are definitely some powersets that work better than others, but you can find a way to solo pretty much anything.

The "support" ATs tend to have lots of damage mitigation, which means you can stay in the battle longer - I find it easier to solo a defender than a blaster at times, because of the glass cannon problem. If I can't kill things fast enough, I will die, because I have no way to heal myself or debuff my opponents in a meaningful way.

Try an Illusion controller, by the way - Deceive is better than a hold, because it makes enemy mobs switch sides. The downside is that you don't get XP for enemies defeated by Deceived foes, but I find that a totally worthwhile tradeoff. You also get Phantom Army at 18, which is really nice. I'm working on an Ill/Emp controller right now, which is great fun in a duo. Ill/Rad should be very solo-able, with monstrous debuffing potential. Some temp powers for additional attacks would be nice, but is not essential.

Der Trihs

02-29-2012, 05:04 PM

Try an Illusion controller, by the way - Deceive is better than a hold, because it makes enemy mobs switch sides. The downside is that you don't get XP for enemies defeated by Deceived foes, but I find that a totally worthwhile tradeoff.Not quite. You get no XP if they are defeated only by confused enemies; you get a share of the XP if you damage them, a bigger share the more damage you do.

Ill/Rad should be very solo-able, with monstrous debuffing potential. Some temp powers for additional attacks would be nice, but is not essential.My only level 50 hero Entropic Girl is an Ill/Rad, and yes it's very soloable (and powerful). Ill/Rad was the build that soloed Lusca the giant squid back in the day, there was a thread about it.

Balance

02-29-2012, 08:55 PM

My only level 50 hero Entropic Girl is an Ill/Rad, and yes it's very soloable (and powerful). Ill/Rad was the build that soloed Lusca the giant squid back in the day, there was a thread about it.
One of several builds, actually. That guy's hobby was apparently soloing giant monsters with controllers and defenders. There have been quite a few dark defenders that have soloed archvillains and GMs, too, but it was always time-consuming.

That's quite a bit easier now, of course, with the advent of Incarnate powers--my emp/dark defender can solo AVs these days. I played him mostly solo all the way to 50, though, long before Incarnates came about. (Culex recently jacked his costume and made a character named "Solo Empath" to tease me.) I even held the top of one of the kill boards with him for several months, back when the info terminals still worked.

The Rad/Fire and Plant/Storm should be extremely soloable. Storm has a relatively steep learning curve, but even without optimal use of the Storm powers, Plant is very powerful.

Der Trihs

02-29-2012, 10:40 PM

I have a Plant/Storm too; Greenwrath on Virtue. A pretty powerful combo, thematic, and pretty spectacular in action. Also starts getting strong early with the Seeds/Freezing Rain/Roots combo, which is nice.

Onomatopoeia

03-02-2012, 01:27 PM

That's quite a bit easier now, of course, with the advent of Incarnate powers--my emp/dark defender can solo AVs these days. I played him mostly solo all the way to 50, though, long before Incarnates came about. (Culex recently jacked his costume and made a character named "Solo Empath" to tease me.) I even held the top of one of the kill boards with him for several months, back when the info terminals still worked.
Speaking of the info terminals, what's the story with them? Why have they been nonfunctional for so long?

Balance

03-02-2012, 02:02 PM

Speaking of the info terminals, what's the story with them? Why have they been nonfunctional for so long?
I'm not sure. I've read two things--that they were being used by RMT spammers to target people, and that they caused performance issues. That's not from any official source, however.

Bosstone

03-02-2012, 02:10 PM

Onomatopoeia

03-02-2012, 11:22 PM

My understanding is that the information kiosks were introduced as leaderboards for PVP, PVP flopped hard, and the kiosks were simply never repurposed.

ETA: Never mind, the kiosks were added in Issue 2, well before PVP. Still, I think the end result is the same: nobody actually cared about what they reported, and they never got repurposed to something useful.I used to use them all the time to check where my characters were ranked. I even sought out a few rivals to team with. What a waste. The devs should just remove them if they won't reactivate them.

Quimby

03-03-2012, 12:28 AM

When I started playing they would rank the stats for players in that Zone. Damage, Healing and a bunch of others. At some point not long after they were deactivated. I read in the forums that an update bugged them and since they were mainly used by Spammers, the devs decided to leave them alone and shut them down.

It seems to me they should at this point probably either re-purpose them for something or remove them.

Brainiac4

03-03-2012, 10:28 PM

Kiosks should give you access to the Auction House and difficulty level settings. That would make sense (in the case of the AH, as much sense as the auction house remote access power does).

I miss the information on the kiosks, though. And I think with Freedom, they may bring the kiosks back.

How were spammers using them?

Quimby

03-04-2012, 07:34 AM

How were spammers using them?

They were using them to harvest names.

Brainiac4

03-04-2012, 10:28 AM

Ah, that makes sense. They could get names of players who were offline, increasing their ability to send spam emails. Those seem to be pretty much gone now, I've noticed.

Balance

03-19-2012, 12:01 PM

Now that the Time of Madness is over, how did everyone fare with double XP? I got my languishing dark/dark cheerleader to 50 at last, ran my tiny Titan Weapon scrapper to 20, and made minor progress on several other characters. Nothing huge, in part because I also spent quite a bit of time running my ill/storm in DA for Incarnate stuff.

Bosstone

03-19-2012, 12:27 PM

I did jack all. I spent a couple hours powering my level 48 Titan Weapons Brute to 50 and got an Elec/Fire Dominator to level 14 with two DFB runs, but that's pretty much it. I've got a project with a self-imposed deadline and I've been goofing off far too much, so I didn't get to enjoy the weekend.

No matter, really; I have so many Experienced temp powers from vet rewards and super packs that the next several characters I play will never want for XP.

Mister Rik

03-19-2012, 01:46 PM

With my 14-hour works shifts on Fri-Sat, Sunday was pretty much all I had. I mostly played low-level toons, but I did get Bruised Violet, my main villain, to level 30. She's only my second level 30 character; my main hero, Flaminatrix, is lvl 42. I'd probably have my #2 hero to 30 by now, except I inadvertently clicked the "Shop" button in the Wentworth's interface while playing her, and now I'm locked out of her the same way I'm locked out of my main.

And speaking of Flaminatrix, it's now 20 days that I haven't been able to play her :( I did go ahead and roll a clone of her on a different server, but I've only gotten the clone up to level 7 so far. And darn it, Flaminatrix #1 is sitting there with over 30 million Inf that I can't access to bankroll my alts. Fortunately, Teardrop, my level 25 SS/Inv brute on Defiant, has gotten lucky with some pricey salvage drops and has about 15 million Inf, so she's taking up the slack.

I've added a couple more characters to my solar-system-based "team" (http://www.mister-rik.com/hosted/coh/The_Solars.jpg):

Haylee Komet (http://www.mister-rik.com/hosted/coh/haylee_komet.jpg) (Fire Blast/Darkness Manip. Blaster)

Lunagetic (http://www.mister-rik.com/hosted/coh/lunagetic.jpg) (Dark Blast/Energy Manip. Blaster)

Der Trihs

03-20-2012, 08:07 PM

Now that the Time of Madness is over, how did everyone fare with double XP? I got 6 characters up 3-4 levels by doing Moonfires (and really burned out on that TF). I got my Energy/Traps Feloni up to 28 on a Renault, my Ice/Storm Corruptor Winterqueen from 32-35 on another.I got my Bots/Storm Deus Ex Machina from 22-24 solo, so now he has both Protector Bots. My Fire/Storm controller got to 38 on an ITF, and right before having to go to bed I soloed my Grav/Rad long enough to get him to Singularity. Plus some levels here and there on various characters.

Quimby

03-20-2012, 11:25 PM

Balance

03-21-2012, 12:48 AM

Beast Mastery was released today. So far seems pretty fun. Only bad part is I had this great Idea to make a Mutant beast master so I said...I'll make her look like an Animal. I discovered that Bioluminescence with the right colors looked a lot like tiger strips so I went with that. Added some details here and there and then finished the costume and went into the game when it it hit me: I created a Cat Girl!

I did't mean to I swear!
It happens to the best of us. Even I have a catgirl on my account. (She was made by my niece, who was playing with the costume creator, and has been standing at the zone-in point in Outbreak for about six years. Still, I haven't deleted her, and that means I'm at least somewhat responsible for her.)

Quimby

04-06-2012, 06:30 PM

Joss Whedon (and Morgan Spurlock) create characters in City of Heroes.

Video here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=C8pwlhSORQc#t=1560s). Link should start in the revelent part but if it doesn't, it starts at about 25 minutes in.

Der Trihs

04-07-2012, 01:56 AM

Some interesting leaks on the Beta (probably not for anything coming too soon though). There's apparently a new power pool coming up named "Sorcery". Also, several new power links can be found on Beta but not Live indicating upcoming new powersets, and a what looks like it may be a new AT.

[Boggle]: Psionic Melee

You flood your foe's mind with doubt causing them to become confused for a brief time. Confused foes will attack their allies. Boggle will also place the "Boggled" effect on your target for a short time. Attacking a Boggled target will increase your chance of gaining Insight. Recharge: Long

[Aqua Bolt]: Water Blast

You strike your foe with a rapid blast of freezing cold water causing Light Cold and Smashing damage as well as reducing their defense. Aqua Bolt builds 1 Tidal Power. Damage: Light, Recharge: Very Fast

[Prowler form]: Feral Might

By activating this toggle, you will shapeshift into the deadly Prowler. This panther-like creature attacks its foes vicious claw and bite attacks. While in this form you will be focused on dealing tremendous damage, stunning and terrorizing foes. Hunter Form costs no endurance and cannot be slotted. However, it grants the user the Pounce power. Pounce is an attack power that benefits from stealth granted by Primalist's Cloak. This power can be slotted as normal. While shapeshifted you will have limited access to Pool Powers. Recharge: Fast

[Hunter form]: Feral Might

By activating this toggle, you will shapeshift into the mighty Hunter. This wolf-like creature attacks its foes with tooth and nail. While in this form you will be focused on delivering powerful debuff effects onto foes you strike with your melee attacks as well as area of effect debuffs that affect all nearby foes. You'll also benefit from an increase to movement and jumping speed. Hunter Form costs no endurance and cannot be slotted. However, it grants the user the Hunter's Howl power. This powerful debuff consumes the user's Primal Energy to deliver a powerful debuff to nearby foes. It can be slotted as normal. While shapeshifted you will have limited access to Pool Powers. Recharge: Fast

[Primalist's Cloak]: Primal Gift

While active Primalist's Cloak significantly boosts your defense to area of effect attacks allowing the Primalist to be less likely to be struck by stray splash damage. Half of this large area of effective defense boost is suppressed when you exit stealth. Additionally, you will gain a measure of stealth and a moderate amount of resistance to defense debuffs. While in Prowler Form you will have significantly improved stealth and have a 50% chance to land a critical hit while concealed by Primalist's Cloak. Recharge: Long

Quimby

05-07-2012, 02:57 PM

FYI for people who care about this sort of thing, there is an 8th anniversary badge. You need to log your character in during the month of May to get it.

Mister Rik

05-11-2012, 10:44 PM

My Paragon Market crash bug is still in effect, but I've gotten around it by buying a Windows laptop and logging in from there. So at least I can play my "locked out" characters again - I logged into them from the laptop and closed the damned market window, then went back to playing them on my Mac. Any time I want to buy something from the store, I do so from the laptop, and that seems to be working well. I was also surprised to discover that this cheap laptop is capable of handling games like Aion, Champions Online, and DDO, so I've been fooling with those a bit. The laptop has also enabled me to set up a free secondary account that I can use to invite my VIP characters into my personal supergroups, so I've created The C-List on Defiant, Solar Angels on Virtue, and The Extracurriculars on Triumph.

I also recently got a heck of a deal on Adobe Photoshop CS5, and have cheerfully jumped back into my old hobby of creating desktop wallpapers, now featuring my CoH characters instead of female Japanese celebrities:

http://misterrik.deviantart.com/gallery/

Mister Rik

05-25-2012, 03:40 PM

Going back to my earlier questions about Flambeaux - today I was reading about G. K. Chesterton on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton#Life), and found this interesting bit:

Chesterton early showed a great interest and talent in art. He had planned to become an artist and his writing shows a vision that clothed abstract ideas in concrete and memorable images. Even his fiction seemed to be carefully concealed parables. Father Brown is perpetually correcting the incorrect vision of the bewildered folks at the scene of the crime and wandering off at the end with the criminal to exercise his priestly role of recognition and repentance. For example, in the story "The Flying Stars", Father Brown entreats the character Flambeau to give up his life of crime: "There is still youth and honour and humour in you; don't fancy they will last in that trade. Men may keep a sort of level of good, but no man has ever been able to keep on one level of evil. That road goes down and down. The kind man drinks and turns cruel; the frank man kills and lies about it. Many a man I've known started like you to be an honest outlaw, a merry robber of the rich, and ended stamped into slime."

Seems a pretty clear inspiration for Flambeaux.

Mister Rik

06-05-2012, 05:43 PM

Triplets? Or clones? You decide!

My first experiment with "triple-boxing" (actually, one game instance on my Mac and two on my Windows laptop):

Colores! (http://www.mister-rik.com/hosted/coh/colores.jpg)

From left to right, Colores Secundarios, Colores Primarios, and Colores Neutrales. The odd light in Atlas is making Neutrales' grays look pinkish.

The instances running on the laptop stayed un-crashed long enough for me to get a couple screenshots.

Mister Rik

07-05-2012, 08:44 PM

Anybody still here?

I'm working on my first AE arc! I've finished the first two missions (I have four planned), and I went ahead and published it as a "Work in Progress". It features my "Solar Angels" supergroup. They've been mysteriously depowered, several members of the group have been abducted, and Mother Sun needs your help!

The name of the arc is "Solar Angels in Peril!" and the Arc ID is 549616. If you'd like to try out what I've got so far and offer suggestions, I'd be a happy camper :) I've got it set to levels 1-20, but since Arachnos is the only enemy group I could probably safely go 1-54 with it.

Also, while troubleshooting another issue, I seem to have rooted out the source of the problem I was having with the Paragon Market crashing my game client. After installing a fresh, clean copy of Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion) on an external drive and booting from that drive before running the game, I discovered that I could successfully access the store without. That got me thinking that the problem was indeed at my end, and I wondered, "What could my original OS install have in it that this fresh install doesn't?" The first thing that came to mind was "fonts".

I had over 800 fonts installed, so my first thought was to clean them all out. In the process, I discovered that I had multiple versions of pretty much every default OS-installed font. Like, previous versions of the OS used different font formats, and all those old versions were still hanging around. It never caused a problem, but City of Heroes is unique in that it's not a Mac-native app — it's a Windows program running inside a Cider wrapper (Cider being a Mac OS X version of Wine, written by a third party). And the Paragon Market software is written by yet another company. Altogether, I think something in there didn't know what to do with multiple format versions of the same fonts. Anyway, I cleaned out the "old" font folder so that it matched the "new" font folder, rebooted from the "old" OS install, then launched the game and accessed the Market. And it worked!

I made sure to pass along my findings to Support so that they can try to confirm them.

CandidGamera

07-06-2012, 08:06 AM

I still check in from time to time..

Quimby

07-06-2012, 08:53 AM

Me too. Water Blast comes out next week. I will probably be a giant cliche and use the Fish Man parts I got as part of that Halloween costume pack.

Brainiac4

07-06-2012, 09:48 AM

Still here, although I haven't played more than an hour or so in the past couple of months. Haven't had much time for gaming, and Diablo III has consumed most of that.

The fonts discovery is fascinating.

Mister Rik

07-06-2012, 09:50 AM

Me too. Water Blast comes out next week. I will probably be a giant cliche and use the Fish Man parts I got as part of that Halloween costume pack.

My "Neptune's Niece" character uses the fish gloves and boots. I created her long before I even heard about Water Blast, so she's an ice/ice blaster. But once I heard about Water Blast, I put her on hold and I'll be rerolling her as soon as the new set comes out.

The Mad Hermit

07-06-2012, 11:12 AM

I've been on quite a lot lately, but I don't encounter any of the rest of you because I spend all my time on Victory. We have a large group of regulars still here- we can run iTrials every night, and there's almost always someone looking for a summer event team. We've even got Master of the Magesterium and The Really Hard Way down.

If you find yourself soloing too much and want to team, find me on Victory- @E.Normus. Since I'm still in recovery from my transplant I've got time to be on, working on badges these days.

Mister Rik

07-06-2012, 05:36 PM

Speaking of badges ...

I've started up what I guess is called a "project character". One thing that's bugged me with the 80-odd characters I've rolled (at least those I've advanced past Atlas Park) is that due to quickly outleveling the zone, I hadn't ever done much of anything in Kings Row outside of missions from other zones sending me there. Aside from a few radio missions, I hadn't done missions for any of the Kings Row contacts. I've also noticed a number of contacts standing around Atlas Park that I've never had any ... contact ... with. And Skyway City was sadly neglected, mainly due to the fact that Skyway's level range matches Steel Canyon's, but Steel has all of the "essential" stuff that Skyway lacks.

So I rolled up a Natural origin dual blades/willpower brute with the intent to thoroughly explore these "neglected" zones. The rules were simple: Turn off XP as necessary to avoid outleveling the zone, and run missions (including Radio and Safeguard missions) for contacts in that zone until they stop introducing me to new contacts in that zone. This is under the assumption that, when they stop introducing new contacts, that means there are no more missions available in that zone (this assumption was basically confirmed for me on the forums). Also, she's getting no financing from my higher-level characters (she is a member of my personal SG on the Justice server, so she has access to the Salvage Racks, but that's it).

So. This character, Asa Castrelli (http://cit.cohtitan.com/character/138725), is the daughter of a low-ranking Family member who crossed the wrong high-ranking Family member and found himself swimming with the fishes. That happened when Asa was a girl. Now she's grown up and out for revenge, and her path to revenge is going to be through the "gritty" zones: Kings Row, Skyway City, Independence Port, and Brickstown.

First step: Atlas Park. In this zone she followed the "normal" path. Matthew Habashy, Sondra Costell, Aaron Thiery, and the first arc of the Shining Stars storyline. That cleared most of the AP missions (she'll use Ourobouros later to come back and do Officer Fields' arc, since at this point she had to choose between him and Sondra). This got her to level 8.

Second step: Kings Row. Since the only contact you get automatically in KR (heck, nobody in Atlas even introduces you to any contacts there, aside from Blue Steel, and he doesn't count) is your assigned detective, Asa started with radio missions and then a Safeguard to get her first contact. When she got to level 9-1/2, I turned off her XP. Then she did every mission offered by KR contacts and any Atlas Park contacts introduced by KR contacts. She did this until all of the contacts she obtained in KR and AP stopped introducing new contacts in those zones. Some of them introduced contacts in Steel Canyon or Skyway, but she ignored those for now. Once they stopped offering new missions and contacts, Asa ran three more Radio missions and a Safeguard to see if the detective had any new contacts. He didn't, and that was my cue that I was done with KR and AP.

Third step: The Hollows. Having been introduced to David Wincott, Asa started on The Hollows arcs. I turned her XP back on just long enough to reach level 10 (I wanted to train another defensive power), and turned it off again. She did Wincott's missions, then ran a bunch of missions for Meg Mason, and then Flux. Soloed Frostfire (though it took two attempts, and I cheated a bit by pulling a self-rez power out of the mail when he killed her; she'd gotten him down to just a sliver of health before she died and I didn't want him regenerating most of his HP while she Ninja Ran back from the hospital). That got her sent off to meet Julius the Troll, and she did his missions until he finally said, "No more missions for you until level 12!"

Fourth step: Being level 10, Asa could now return to Twinshot to do the second part of the Shining Stars arc, and that's where she is now (actually she's up to 11 now). I've turned her XP back on until she gets to level 12, so that when she finishes Shining Starts Part 2 she can go back to Julius the Troll and pick up where she left off.

I'll only turn XP on as necessary, but in any case I will shut it off at level 14, as the next stop will be Skyway City North. She'll clear that the same way she did AP & KR, then bump up to level 15, via radio missions and turn off XP again to go do the third stage of the Shining Stars arc. Again, I'll completely ignore contacts in Steel Canyon or any other "shiny" zone.

So as it stands now, thanks to freezing her XP, she's level 11 and completely tricked out with level 10 IOs. Inf-wise, she got extremely lucky when she posted two Simple Chemicals on the AH and somebody paid her 500,000 each for them, giving her some financial leeway. And that's another benefit to freezing her XP - it gives her plenty of time to pick up lots of that low-level salvage that seems to sell for good prices. Also, thanks to all that time spent in AP, KR, Perez, and The Hollows, she already has the "Kill Skuls" badge (defeat 500 Skulls). Heck, my level 48 main doesn't even have that one! I'll note, though, that she did absolutely no deliberate, focused "street-sweeping/hunting" to get that badge. Every Skull she defeated was either part of a mission, or encountered while traveling from one mission to the next. Asa simply made a point of engaging every Skull she ran across while traveling. If they were in her path, they were going down, but she didn't deliberately seek them out outside of missions. I have her travel by ground (using Ninja Run) as much as possible; she has a Rocket Pack, but uses it only when absolutely necessary. With so much ground-pounding, she naturally encountered plenty of Skulls while traveling.

And that brings me back to badges, specifically Exploration badges. My goal there is to get all of the Exploration badges in each zone, without deliberately hunting for them. She has to "find" them (along with the History plaques) "naturally", while traveling between missions and contacts. I have VidiotMaps installed, of course, so if she passes near a marker while traveling she can turn aside to "find" it. She just can't spend time running around the zone purely to find markers. As luck would have it, she "found" all of the markers in AP and KR this way — the missions eventually sent her near enough to each marker for her to find them "naturally". Hazard zones are going to be the trick here, since those maps are completely invisible until you move through them, so she can't even see the VidiotMaps markers unless her natural travel path happens to light them up. She could pass near one but never see it because she wasn't quite close enough to reveal it on the map. But that's one reason she ran so many missions for Meg Mason in The Hollows - she wanted to cover as much ground as possible. I'm counting on future missions into Perez to find the rest of the markers there. Only when/if she gets to level 50 will she go back to specifically hunt down any markers she missed.

It's been fun so far :)

Quimby

07-07-2012, 08:08 AM

There was talk at the last Player Summit of the Devs suggesting they may turn King's Row into a mini Gotham city. Revamp it as a darker place and make it night all the time. The players hated the idea but I would love that. They should do the same for the other Neglected "grittier" zones

Mister Rik

07-07-2012, 10:50 AM

I would actually like to see that, except for the "night all the time" part. I've discovered from the forums that there are a lot of people who, like me, don't play redside much, with one of the most common complaints being that it's dark and gloomy all the time. But giving Kings Row its own storyline would be great.

Side question: Is it officially "Kings Row" (no apostrophe) or "King's Row" (with apostrophe)? The loading screen says "KINGS ROW", but I've also seen it mentioned with the apostrophe here and there in-game, so even the game itself is somewhat inconsistent. I'm leaning toward the "no apostrophe", because of the loading screen and a new (?*) feature I just discovered. If you click on the random citizens walking around, they make informational statements, and one of them told me that Kings Row got its name because, decades ago, it was the home to an organized crime gang called "The Kings". That would seem to make the word collective, not possessive.

*Is this something new? I'm sure I've clicked on civilians before, but they never said anything until i23 came out.

Mister Rik

07-07-2012, 10:55 AM

Oh, and I was inspired to roll my project character after I started this thread on the forums:

Is Skyway City ... superfluous? (http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=291732)

Lute Skywatcher

07-07-2012, 12:05 PM

*Is this something new? I'm sure I've clicked on civilians before, but they never said anything until i23 came out.Not new; you probably weren't close enough to talk to 'em before.

Most civilians with initials E - O will say specific things. Here's a list. (http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Civilian_NPCs)

Jophiel

07-07-2012, 12:26 PM

Kings Row is named after the closed King Garment Works factory. Since the factory name is singular, I'm guessing "Kings Row" should be possessive. But the loading screen and stuff is sans apostrophe.

Edit: According to the official site, Kings Row (http://na.cityofheroes.com/en/game_info/geography/the_zones_of_paragon_city_king.php) was founded around the Garment Works and then a gang took THEIR name from the factory and the zone is named after that...

Bosstone

07-07-2012, 01:22 PM

Yep, same reason the game is Saints Row, not Saint's Row.

Quimby

07-07-2012, 10:34 PM

BTW the two most useful Civilians are people with names beginning with M and N. One tells you how many times you have logged a character into the game and the other tells you how many hours that character has been played (I forget which is which).

Mister Rik

07-07-2012, 10:50 PM

I know one of them told me I'd been playing for 1825 hours. That's a bit over 76 days, so I assumed she meant that was the total time I've played the game, not how long I'd played that particular character (especially since it was a level 4 character).

Lute Skywatcher

07-08-2012, 01:59 PM

M Your total hours in game on your current character.

Mister Rik

07-23-2012, 08:38 PM

Well, it certainly took long enough, but Flaminatrix (http://cit.cohtitan.com/character/131793) became my first level 50 character this evening :D

Lok

07-23-2012, 10:50 PM

Well, it certainly took long enough, but Flaminatrix (http://cit.cohtitan.com/character/131793) became my first level 50 character this evening :D
Long!? You folks don't know how easy you have it these days. It took me years, years I say, to get my first character to level 50! Years!!! And some day, I am certain I will get another one to that lofty height. Oh, and GET OFF MY LAWN!!!

Onomatopoeia

07-23-2012, 11:11 PM

So who else is having a heck of a fun time with water blast? Weak as all get out, at least it is on my defender, but so much fun!

Mister Rik

07-24-2012, 12:53 AM

Long!? You folks don't know how easy you have it these days. It took me years, years I say, to get my first character to level 50! Years!!! And some day, I am certain I will get another one to that lofty height. Oh, and GET OFF MY LAWN!!!
But isn't that only because the game was a few years old before they raised the level cap to 50? :D

In my case, I blame my overabundance of alts for taking 10 months to get to 50 on the first one.

So who else is having a heck of a fun time with water blast? Weak as all get out, at least it is on my defender, but so much fun!
My water blaster is only level 9, but the PS feels more powerful than other blaster sets, at low levels anyway.

The Mad Hermit

07-24-2012, 07:09 AM

I made a water blast/ice dom corruptor with the name Wet Willie, who just reached level 30, and it's a lot of fun. Best on big teams; solo is rough with few defenses. The whirlpool is awesome for damage over time.

A friend on Victory made a water blaster called Aunt Flo, and colored the water effects red.

Mister Rik

07-24-2012, 10:02 AM

A friend on Victory made a water blaster called Aunt Flo, and colored the water effects red.

http://dieselsweeties.com/archive.php?s=194

Brainiac4

07-24-2012, 02:02 PM

Well, it certainly took long enough, but Flaminatrix (http://cit.cohtitan.com/character/131793) became my first level 50 character this evening :D

Congrats. Did you notice that the level-up fireworks for 50 are different from the others? Or is that just me?

Brainiac4

07-24-2012, 02:08 PM

Rambling...

Dangerosa and I are playing again, after a Diablo III-induced hiatus. We've started yet another pair of alts. These are on Defiant; I've made Scraptacular again, this time as a Street Justice/Willpower scrapper. He's not superhuman, he's just really pissed off. :)

Dangerosa is playing with the Time set, finally - she made a Time/Psychic defender named Trendline.

We just hit level 10, so we're just a few hours in, but the early going is the most fun - new powers keep popping up, and you feel like things are going so fast. I guess that's why I have so many alts - not as many as Lok, but that's a really high bar.

I do have three characters at 50, though - Thermocline (Fire/Fire blaster), Doctor Supernatural (Fire-Rad controller) and Truck Driving Elvis (SS/WP brute). Thermo is old enough that he hit 50 before Enhancement Diversification, and he hasn't been respecced - still has 5 slots in Stamina.

I've been thinking of taking one of the 50s out - probably Elvis - and doing Incarnate content in Dark Astoria. He's on Protector, where we put the Urban Legends. Anyone who's tried that care to give me some pointers?

CandidGamera

07-24-2012, 02:35 PM

I still haven't hit 50 with Shadow Stranger. I think I left him at 47.

Mister Rik

07-24-2012, 07:08 PM

Congrats. Did you notice that the level-up fireworks for 50 are different from the others? Or is that just me?
Apparently the level-up fireworks change every 10 levels, and somebody on the official forums made a video showing them all in sequence so that you can actually see the difference. Alas, I have no link; I saw it a while ago.

I guess that's why I have so many alts - not as many as Lok, but that's a really high bar.
I'm up to 85 of them so far :D Now that Flaminatrix is 50, I have no characters in the 40s. My highest characters after her are:

Teardrop: level 35 SS/Inv brute (hero)
Bruised Violet: level 32 DM/DA brute (villain)
Cobalt Claw: level 31 Claws/Inv scrapper (vigilante)
White Orchid: level 31 Energy/Energy brute (hero)
Steffi McAllister: level 28 Dual Blades/Energy scrapper (hero)
Incinerata: level 27 Fire/Fire scrapper (hero)
Shocking Pink: level 22 Electric/Electric scrapper (hero)
Brain Cloud: level 20 PsyBlast/DM blaster (hero)
Energy Ellie: level 20 Energy/Mental Manip blaster (hero)
Tabitha Target: level 20 Archery/DM blaster (hero)
Mandy Clark: level 20 Street Justice/Willpower stalker (hero)

All the rest are under level 20.

Bruised Violet and White Orchid up there are sisters. Their backstory is somewhat involved, but the gist is that they were orphans growing up on the streets in an undetermined 3rd-world country (where will I find brown-skinned, green-eyed people?). As teenagers they were abducted and held captive for several months by a magic-wielding madman who subjected them to horrific magical experimentation. This caused their own magic-based powers to manifest, and they were able to defeat their captor and escape. They eventually made their way to Paragon City and worked together as heroes for a while, but their ordeal affected each of them differently — White Orchid came to believe it was the responsibility of the strong to protect the weak, while Bruised Violet took the lesson that only the strong survive — and BV veered off into villainy and relocated to the Rogue Isles.

How about a question:

I've gotten a handful (3, I think) of Enhancement Catalysts from SuperPacks. I figure Flaminatrix can make the best use of them at this time, but I read this bit on ParagonWiki:

"Note: Standard and Catalyzed Enhancements do not contribute to each other's Set Bonuses. Having two standards and one Superior of the same set will not count as a 3-slotted set, but rather a 2-slotted standard and 1-slotted Superior."

It also mentions that currently, they only work with AT Enhancements. Flaminatrix currently has the Blaster AT set 5-slotted, with a 6th that I'm using Converters on in an attempt to turn it into the one I'm missing (five unsuccessful attempts so far).

If I understand the above correctly, I'm assuming that I should wait until I have six Catalysts before using them (and have that 6th AT enhancement properly converted), so that I can catalyze the whole set at once. Does that sound right?

Lok

07-24-2012, 09:36 PM

But isn't that only because the game was a few years old before they raised the level cap to 50? :D

In my case, I blame my overabundance of alts for taking 10 months to get to 50 on the first one.

It was actually only a few months. Level 50 was added in Issue #1. And there were people complaining that it took so long to get there. I just spent a lot of time on alts.

I'm up to 85 of them so far :D Now that Flaminatrix is 50, I have no characters in the 40s. My highest characters after her are:

Teardrop: level 35 SS/Inv brute (hero)
Bruised Violet: level 32 DM/DA brute (villain)
Cobalt Claw: level 31 Claws/Inv scrapper (vigilante)
White Orchid: level 31 Energy/Energy brute (hero)
Steffi McAllister: level 28 Dual Blades/Energy scrapper (hero)
Incinerata: level 27 Fire/Fire scrapper (hero)
Shocking Pink: level 22 Electric/Electric scrapper (hero)
Brain Cloud: level 20 PsyBlast/DM blaster (hero)
Energy Ellie: level 20 Energy/Mental Manip blaster (hero)
Tabitha Target: level 20 Archery/DM blaster (hero)
Mandy Clark: level 20 Street Justice/Willpower stalker (hero)

All the rest are under level 20.

And that is pretty much my story with alts. Except I never get to play at all anymore. :( Haven't been home in 2 1/2 weeks, and when I am there, it is usually for 1 day, which is not enough time to do necessary stuff, let alone spend time playing COH. I don't even have a Street Justice version of JB yet. :( I need a better job. (i.e. one that pays really well, but I don't have to actually leave my house or work. :p)

Brainiac4

07-24-2012, 10:07 PM

Apparently the level-up fireworks change every 10 levels, and somebody on the official forums made a video showing them all in sequence so that you can actually see the difference. Alas, I have no link; I saw it a while ago.

Found it.

http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/File:Leveling.gif

Lok

07-24-2012, 10:16 PM

Found it.

http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/File:Leveling.gif

Cool. My graphics have never been good enough to notice any difference. Started to save for a much better machine, but it will be months before I can get it. Then I will just need more time to use it.

Brainiac4

07-24-2012, 10:23 PM

The first time I saw the level 50 fireworks was when Justice Blues (the original one, on Virtue) leveled to 50. I was on Thermocline, and we were up against Infernal, I think.

Ike Witt

07-24-2012, 11:04 PM

Is CoH free to play now?

Saltire

07-25-2012, 01:57 AM

Yep, it's been free for a year or so now. I think the extras you get for subscribing are worth it, but you can have a lot of fun without paying.

Gang, I'm about to make my badger, Sky Hook, into a villain. I don't really want to be a villain for any longer than needed to get all the badges I can get. Any advice?

I've already filled up the Day Job bars for all the Rogue Isles jobs, so I'll get those badges very quickly. I plan to go through all the arcs in Oroboros, just to be a completist.

He's an energy/energy/force blaster, level 50 +3. He has all his incarnate slots filled except for Hybrid (only done Magisterium once), though not all are tier 4 yet. I figure Efficiency Expert should be easier for an Incarnate. (He actually has Pither as a contact, having done a few newspaper mishes in Grandville as a Vigilante.)

Mister Rik

07-25-2012, 09:16 AM

I spent some time on Flaminatrix picking up all of the sewer exploration badges. I was amused by how the text of those badges is some of the best, most dramatic writing in the game :D

Quimby

07-25-2012, 10:02 AM

Found it.

http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/File:Leveling.gif

I have been playing for years and have a wide variety of levels and have never once noticed this...neat.

Mister Rik

07-27-2012, 12:19 PM

Cool. My graphics have never been good enough to notice any difference. Started to save for a much better machine, but it will be months before I can get it. Then I will just need more time to use it.

Eh, I don't think it's graphics quality so much as it's the amount of time it takes between levels - you just forget what it looked like last time and so don't notice that it's different this time.

Heck, sometimes it surprises me how slow leveling can be when soloing. I was playing Teardrop and noticed she was only two bubbles away from level 36. "Hey, one more mission ought to do it," I thought. It took eight missions, and that was doing full clears of each map (including beating many of those Freakshow twice), in addition to having the XP bonus from being logged out in a police station and earning the Law Enforcer day job badge.

Balance

07-27-2012, 01:56 PM

I've been thinking of taking one of the 50s out - probably Elvis - and doing Incarnate content in Dark Astoria. He's on Protector, where we put the Urban Legends. Anyone who's tried that care to give me some pointers?
I see now that no one responded to this, so I will. I've run the DA stuff with my empath and my Illusion/Storm controller--in fact, most of the latter's Incarnate progress is from DA.

Overall, I think the arcs are quite good. There are some clunky bits, but the whole set (and the finale in particular) are the best in the game for making you feel that you're a serious Power in the world, especially if you pick the more challenging options in dialog in a couple of places. There are some fun new mechanics in play as well, and your decisions can have consequences in subsequent missions. Pay attention to your mission objectives in the nav bar; something curious might pop up.

In terms of making Incarnate progress, it's frankly very slow. You can unlock slots and fill them with low-tier powers pretty quickly, but if you're aiming for Tier 3 or higher using only the DA content, you're going to be grinding them for a while. On the plus side, you can speed through the first arc very quickly (~12 minutes); a little over half an hour gets you the relevant rewards (a component, 10 threads, and an I-merit or two) for the day. Alternatively, you can work your way through the arcs each week instead of running the same one every day to earn a couple of guaranteed Empyrean merits from Gabriel. (Which brings up a tip--before you start Heather's arc, go talk to Gabriel and pick up his mission. You complete it by completing the arcs.)

Lok

07-27-2012, 10:06 PM

The first time I saw the level 50 fireworks was when Justice Blues (the original one, on Virtue) leveled to 50. I was on Thermocline, and we were up against Infernal, I think.

Not quite. He hit 50 fighting Tyrant to rescue Statesman. The defeat of Tyrant pushed him over, which is about as epic a way as was possible then. I think Culex was on Plagatus with us.

Eh, I don't think it's graphics quality so much as it's the amount of time it takes between levels - you just forget what it looked like last time and so don't notice that it's different this time.

Heck, sometimes it surprises me how slow leveling can be when soloing. I was playing Teardrop and noticed she was only two bubbles away from level 36. "Hey, one more mission ought to do it," I thought. It took eight missions, and that was doing full clears of each map (including beating many of those Freakshow twice), in addition to having the XP bonus from being logged out in a police station and earning the Law Enforcer day job badge.

I have seen the lower level changes a lot on my alts and never noticed the differences, even when switching over and leveling on a higher level. You miss a lot with lousy graphics in the game. But now that I have supported the kickstarter I was saving too much money for, I can start saving for a new system. Although I might go for an Android tablet first. I will get more use out if one of those on the road.

Brainiac4

07-28-2012, 11:21 PM

Thanks, Bal - I'll try to make use of your advice soon.

Lok, thanks for the reminder - I remembered the little entryway room but misremembered it as the one for Infernal's chamber rather than for Tyrant's. I do think Plags was there, and I have the impression that we had others (or at least one other) there as well - possibly Dangerosa on Eliza Bennet, her Emp/Energy defender.

It's been a while since I've played in a big group. We had a string of bad experiences with PUGs, usually someone playing a Scrapper who should have been named Attention Deficit Boy. I miss it.

Lok

07-29-2012, 01:54 AM

Well it was a bigger deal for me getting to 50 than for the rest of you. :) Dangerosa may have been there, I'm not sure one way or the other.

I had quite a bit of luck playing on PUGs with the various Incarnate TFs, when I had the time to do so. Even picked up some Master badges on a couple. Haven't tried any recently, so I have no idea what the new ones are like, or even what changes have been made in the first few.

Brainiac4

07-29-2012, 02:03 PM

I took Elvis out for a spin; I've finished the Mender Ramiel arc, and I earn xp for my Alpha Slot, but I can't see a progress bar. Where the heck is that? I recall it being associated with the Incarnate Powers UI, but I can't recall where.

Saltire

07-30-2012, 11:13 AM

Doesn't that arc just open the slot, no progress bar necessary? An empty hole should be in the 'equip' tab of your Incarnate Abilities window.

Bosstone

07-30-2012, 11:28 AM

Doesn't that arc just open the slot, no progress bar necessary? An empty hole should be in the 'equip' tab of your Incarnate Abilities window.Right. Ramiel's arc doesn't give you Alpha XP. You only earn Alpha XP if you haven't run Ramiel's arc and proceed directly to Incarnate content.

Opening the Alpha Slot can be done a few ways:
1) Run Ramiel's arc.
2) Run Incarnate content, either DA or trials, to earn XP toward the slot.
3) Purchase a voucher for 5 Astrals on a character that's already run Incarnate content.
4) May be some other ways added, I haven't played in a while.

Quimby

07-30-2012, 03:51 PM

Bosstone

07-30-2012, 04:38 PM

I would love to get into the Incarnate stuff but it just seems like a lot of busy work to make your character stronger so you can run more Incarnate Content so you can make your character stronger so you can run more Incarnate content and so on...Some of it's nice to have for regular content. A Tier 3 Alpha at the very least does wonderful things for your character.

But you're right, most of it isn't necessary unless you want to play in the Incarnate stuff. If you get more satisfaction out of optimizing your IO build or starting a fresh character, you're not missing out by not doing Incarnate stuff.

Sailboat

08-08-2012, 08:44 AM

Issue 24 changes (http://na.cityofheroes.com/en/news/game_updates/issue_24/overview.php) look exciting.

Quimby

08-08-2012, 10:51 AM

Issue 24 changes (http://na.cityofheroes.com/en/news/game_updates/issue_24/overview.php) look exciting.

Agreed! I have been wanting a Zig prison escape event since I first entered that zone with my first character and a real arc in Kings Row is another long time request by me fulfilled.

Quimby

08-11-2012, 07:01 AM

FYI Issue 24 is on the Beta server if you want to try it.

Maus Magill

08-20-2012, 09:53 AM

I finally got CoH to work on my new Machine.

I took Samindarian out for some Nemesis bashing goodness.

Lok

08-20-2012, 10:48 AM

I got on for a few hours Saturday night. Working my way slowly through the DA arcs, but it looks like some of them are set after Incarnate trials. I didn't see some of the contacts mentioned.

Balance

08-20-2012, 01:50 PM

I got on for a few hours Saturday night. Working my way slowly through the DA arcs, but it looks like some of them are set after Incarnate trials. I didn't see some of the contacts mentioned.
Yes, they are set after some of the earlier trials, though I don't think they assume you've done them. There are also small variations in dialog and such if you've done certain Praet arcs--I know Domi...er, Praetor Duncan says some different things if you've run through First Ward before dealing with her in DA. The series of DA arcs leads into the "Dilemma Diabolique" trial, which is near the end of the Praet storyline.

Quimby

08-20-2012, 08:16 PM

This video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNKgzC7rGCs) goes over some rumored future power sets (presumably uncovered by people who dig into the game files). Interesting stuff possibly coming up.

Quimby

08-23-2012, 03:25 PM

Nature Affinity was released. I got it and made a Beast Mastery/NA Mastermind. Still very early but it was the first time I really played in a while and I had fun.

Thinking of making a Water Blast/NA Corrupter next.

Der Trihs

08-23-2012, 07:11 PM

I made a heroic Water/Nature Corruptor named Marsh Mistress, and a Praetorian Necro/Nature Mastermind named The Verdant Legion. He's supposed to be the result of Neuron dumping a batch of "failed" regeneration serum in a field that happened to have a dead body buried under it.

Mister Rik

08-23-2012, 07:48 PM

Flaminatrix unlocked her Alpha slot a couple weeks ago, and crafted her first Uncommon incarnate power today :)

I've been annoyed at the devs for a couple weeks because the NCLauncher broke under Mac OS 10.8 (Mountain Lion). Basically, it insta-crashed every time we Mac users tried to launch it. I happened to have Mac OS X 10.7 still installed on an external drive, so for the past couple weeks I've had to reboot my Mac from that drive in order to play. But the other day another player in the Mac forums posted a rather complex UNIX command that can be entered in Terminal to launch the game client directly, bypassing the NCLauncher. Still, I hope Paragon can get this glitched fixed sooner rather than later. The UNIX command only works if the client is patched and up-to-date (since the Launcher is required for patching), so if I need to patch I'll have to boot from the external drive, patch the client, and then reboot back to Mac OS X 10.8... annoying.

Mister Rik

08-30-2012, 05:42 PM

Fun with character names - I love when things work out like this. I have a number of characters who hail from countries other than the USA, so when I come up with their "secret identity" names I do a bit of research to pick a suitable name from their native countries.

So I have a French character whose hero name is Flavie Faker (Ill/FF controller). Flavie is a French name that means "yellow hair" (and indeed, I gave her yellow hair). She's part of another one of my "concept" groups, and all of the characters have alliterative two-word names that combine their first names with another word that relates to their powers. i.e. Tabitha Target (archery), Betty Beatdown (war mace), Raisa Razor (claws), Energy Ellie (energy blast), Kinetic Keisha (kin melee), etc.

So I got around to looking for a last name for Flavie Faker, and found a list of French surnames and what they mean. I wanted to continue the alliteration theme, so was looking at surnames starting with "F", and I found "Fournier" which means, roughly, "from the oven", and is effectively the French equivalent of the English name "Baker". Which rhymes with "Faker". I thought it was cool how that worked out.

It's almost as clever (IMHO) as something I picked up on in 'Weird Al' Yankovic's "Fat", his parody of Michael Jackson's "Bad". In "Bad", there's a part where Jackson says, "Jam on, jam on", and Yankovic replaces that with "Ham on, ham on". I was listening to "Fat" one day and realized that the Spanish word for "ham" is spelled ... "jamón" :D

Der Trihs

08-30-2012, 06:58 PM

One of my favorite "clever names" I came up with is Martial Artist, my Dark/Dark controller with wildly colored "Dark" powers. Her backstory is that she's the latest in a long line of women in her family to inherit a magical paintbrush used for creating enchanted artwork, but isn't nearly as artistically talented as her foremothers. She is however much more talented magically than her ancestresses, and can use the magical paint as a weapon; binding her enemies with magically summoned paint, or painting monsters to attack them.

Lightnin'

08-31-2012, 01:51 PM

It's just been announced that Paragon Studios is shutting down, and they're ending City of Heroes. (http://na.cityofheroes.com/en/news/news_archive/thank_you.php)

Jophiel

08-31-2012, 02:01 PM

Well, that's a shame. I dropped out because I didn't like the direction F2P went but I enjoyed the game itself very much. Sad to see it go.

Bosstone

08-31-2012, 02:18 PM

I haven't been playing City very often lately, despite having purchased a 14-month sub late last year...

...but dammit, City's as close to home as an MMO can get for me. It's the one game I never dropped my subscription on, even when I went months without playing. It's always been there and I've always had fun on it. It's comfortable and familiar and enjoyable.

The hell of it is, it's not even City's fault. NCSoft is taking some major hits this year due to Aion's suckiness, and they're cutting the low-performers, refocusing core competencies, tightening belts, and a bunch of other corporate bullshit.

There's nothing quite like City in the MMOspace now. It sucks to lose something unique.

Quimby

08-31-2012, 02:22 PM

I am really disappointed...it must be sudden for everyone there because they were talking about future plans as recent as yesterday.

Der Trihs

08-31-2012, 04:11 PM

Well, that was totally out of the blue. I'm with the people on the forums talking about how they'll never buy anything again from NCSoft after being blindsided like this.

Oh, I expected the game to die eventually; but not when they still had new content in Beta, and not before a long period when development had declined or ended and they just ran the servers to get money from the long time fans. I didn't expect everything to be hunky-dory one day, and doom the next; even the Devs were blindsided apparently.

And now we'll never know what the hell the Battalion was going to be like.

Bosstone

08-31-2012, 04:18 PM

I'm with the people on the forums talking about how they'll never buy anything again from NCSoft after being blindsided like this.Yeah. For a while there NCSoft was the new, punky young kid of the MMO world, and they did stuff right. They looked like a fantastic company compared to SOE, which was the big dog at the time. More and more lately, though, NCSoft has proven to be as big a bunch of assholes as SOE. Dumping Paragon out of the blue like this is just the cherry on top.

Onomatopoeia

08-31-2012, 04:36 PM

Wow. I must admit that I am somewhat stunned. I've played COX off and on, mostly off lately, for over 7 years. It has the best player character rendering/animation that I've ever seen.

It's really a shame to see it go.

AndrewL

08-31-2012, 05:31 PM

This was posted on the Facebook comment thread:

I did some digging and I think I found out why. Cryptic Studios kept the original rights and licence when they separated from NCSoft and sold a 5-year licence to the company. Those 5 years are now up, and since that time Cryptic Studios has developed Champions Online, been bought out by Atari, which was itself bought out by Perfect World. Seeing how Perfect World is another Korean Developer with a Super Hero MMO of its own, it clearly doesn't want competition. Therefore, they will not sell the renewal licence to NCSoft or have raised the licence fees too high for profitability.

If that's true, it's not NCsoft you should be boycotting. It's Perfect World, Atari, and Cryptic Studios.

Bosstone

08-31-2012, 06:08 PM

It seems unlikely, given that Paragon Studios was taken by surprise too. If there was a 5-year deadline coming up,at the very least they would have been prepared for the eventuality.

Sailboat

08-31-2012, 07:00 PM

Gah.

Mister Rik

08-31-2012, 08:01 PM

Well frak. This game turned out to be the perfect game for me, style- and gameplay-wise, and I only found it less than a year ago. Now WoW's the only decent Mac-compatible MMO out there.

And dammit, I just bought $50 worth of Paragon Points and haven't even spent most of them yet.

Leaper

08-31-2012, 08:15 PM

It seems unlikely, given that Paragon Studios was taken by surprise too. If there was a 5-year deadline coming up,at the very least they would have been prepared for the eventuality.

Yeah, but the theory involves a buyout as a key component. That would be an unplanned for event.

As a non-player who knows of the game, I wonder what kind of grand mega crisis crossover will bring the franchise to a close? I think that would be kinda fun.

Quimby

09-01-2012, 08:17 AM

Yeah, but the theory involves a buyout as a key component. That would be an unplanned for event.

As a non-player who knows of the game, I wonder what kind of grand mega crisis crossover will bring the franchise to a close? I think that would be kinda fun.

There's no more development so I doubt anything will happen other than a shut down. I am kind of pissed as I bought $15 worth of points literally the day before the announcement. I already e-mailed looking for a refund.

Mister Rik

09-01-2012, 10:20 AM

I was so bummed (and, well, hungover too, but the two aren't connected) yesterday that I couldn't even play. I don't even know if I can generate any kind of enthusiasm for playing it out until the end. With 89 characters — and that doesn't count the ones I've deleted — I've seen most of the solo content. Blueside anyway, since my only level 50 is a hero. So it's not like I feel a need to hurry and do all the stuff I haven't gotten to yet.

On a certain level, most of my enjoyment of this game has been on a meta-game level. I fully embraced the idea of the journey being more important than the destination, and invented my own goals for what I wanted to "accomplish" in the game. Hence, my two themed supergroups, Solar Angels (my solar-system-based group) and The Extracurriculars (the schoolgirls whose school was destroyed in Galaxy City). I'd made my own little plan for advancing and developing the stories of these teams. Lately my efforts have been focused on getting the characters in The Extracurriculars (http://misterrik.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d4v3xc4) as "even" as possible level-wise, just for the illusion that they developed together as a team as opposed to being individual characters solo-leveled separately. I even had a plan laid out for how their different costumes would work as they progressed: They started out in what was essentially their everyday school clothes, then at level 20 they would each create an actual costume that reflected their own individual style and image. At level 30 they would design, "together", a team uniform, i.e. identical outfits but maintaining their individual color schemes. I've gotten five of them to 20, and a sixth almost there, with two more trailing behind. Their teacher-turned-nemesis is still stuck at level 8, and I'd just started trying again to get her leveled up. Now ... what's the point? The shutdown announcement came right as my job is getting ready to head into another busy season (Fall convention season, Sept-Oct-Nov), so there's no way I'll have the time to play enough to get them all as far as 30. I suppose I could at least create and screenshot the costumes/uniforms they would have eventually gotten to. It's making me really wish I'd discovered this game years ago so that I could have had the time to develop my ideas.

The other big bummer is that, as a Macintosh user, CoH and WoW are really the only MMO options out there for me. After November it'll just be WoW. I suppose I could get a gaming PC; I have a Windows laptop, but it's really not powerful enough for serious gaming, and I can't stand playing on that small screen. But even if I do get a gaming PC desktop, I can promise that NCSoft won't be getting any more of my money (not a hard decision in any case - I've tried Aion and found it to be complete crap, and their other offerings don't intrigue me).

Lightnin'

09-01-2012, 10:51 AM

Now WoW's the only decent Mac-compatible MMO out there.

For now. Elder Scrolls Online will be Mac-compatible when it ships.

Balance

09-01-2012, 11:46 AM

I'm still rather in shock. Things were going well; the game has been undergoing a renaissance of sorts. New stuff was coming out faster than ever, and it was generally of better quality than what had come before, and grand plans for the future. Now it's all going to wither on the vine for "realignment"? Realignment to what? Yet another grind-whoring WOW clone, now with prettier pictures, because that worked so well last time?

It's the abruptness that gets to me. We all knew that it would end some day, and I would no doubt have been saddened when the end came, but I expected some warning signs before the announcement. Slowed development pace, no new storylines introduced for a while, and old ones wrapped up. I thought there would be a graceful decline, not a sudden shock.

I can't play right now. Maybe after I have some time to think, to find some way to give my characters closure, so they can live on in my mind after the servers go dark. But not yet.

Brainiac4

09-01-2012, 12:42 PM

What. The. Fuck.

I'm just baffled. And sad.

Bosstone

09-01-2012, 01:50 PM

FWIW, there's going to be at least one concerted effort by the Titan Network to purchase the City of Heroes IP and database through crowdfunding. I doubt NCSoft will agree to sell, though; their recent behavior has been closed-off and uncooperative.

Brainiac4

09-01-2012, 01:59 PM

That's a nice ray of hope, albeit a slim one.

Brainiac4

09-01-2012, 02:05 PM

I spent a few minutes visiting the characters I care about the most.

Thermocline, my first 50, is standing in front of Miss Liberty. "If there must be an ending, let it be where it all began," he says. "I stand ready."

Super-Collider, my first character post-beta, who never made it to 50, is in Portal Court. "There's so much to learn, and to explore. Maybe in another world, there's a place where it will go on."

Truck Driving Elvis, the villain I played to 50, who made it to Rogue but won't complete his transformation to a hero, is standing next to Positron and Valkyrie. "Steel Canyon looks like a nice place to make a last stand. I'm ready to rock."

I'm just sad.

Sailboat

09-02-2012, 10:13 AM

I'm still rather in shock. Things were going well; the game has been undergoing a renaissance of sorts. New stuff was coming out faster than ever, and it was generally of better quality than what had come before, and grand plans for the future.

"Undergoing a renaissance" is exactly how I've been describing the game to acquaintances. This game was doing well for an MMO -- in fact, if you subtract the anomaly that is WoW from the field, COH/V is currently a major success.

It's the abruptness that gets to me. We all knew that it would end some day,

Hell, my "other game" is Diablo 2 (still!) That one's been running years longer, for free, and is still supported. So I didn't particularly think a going concern like COH/V would fold at any particular time.

Adding to my angst, with D3 out, it seems logical they might shut down D2 soon anyway. THAT'S the game I was afraid for.

I've been searching for a metaphor to explain the impact of this to people, and I think sports provides something of an example.

Imagine the dedicated sports fans you know. They know it's "not real," they know it's "just a game," but they bleed team colors. If NCSoft had just shut down a server or two, it would be like your home team leaving town forever. There are STILL people upset about famous team moves, decades later (try whispering "Robert Irsay (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Irsay#The_Move)" in Baltimore).

Shutting down the whole game is more like your entire sport, say, football, simply ceasing operations. Even though it's making money and popular.

"There are other sports," people will argue. "Try curling!"

Yeah.

Jophiel

09-02-2012, 12:13 PM

In the years I played, I was friends with a terrific art community and acquired these pieces along the way...

Polish Princess (http://i.imgur.com/xo4ed.png)
Polish Princess (http://i.imgur.com/iH4CL.png)
Rose Veldt (http://i.imgur.com/u2ap0.jpg)
Pachamama (http://i.imgur.com/vQfV1.jpg) - I don't think any MMORPG will ever give me the same sense of hilariously chaotic power as a fully developed Storm/Earth Controller
Pachamama (http://i.imgur.com/sCyCI.jpg)
Tally-Ho (http://i.imgur.com/1q1NP.jpg)
Tally-Ho (http://i.imgur.com/QImhc.jpg)
Scarlet Finch (http://i.imgur.com/O6nsV.jpg) - Tally-Ho's alternate universe evil twin, natch

There's other pieces too, but that's enough for now. And, yes, I had plenty of male characters as well but they never seemed to get the art love :D

Anyway, I haven't thought about my little collection much recently but, with CoH going under, it's nice to have some tangible reminder of the good times.

Balance

09-02-2012, 04:06 PM

Nice, Jophiel. I wish I had the artistic talent to draw my characters the way they are in my head (as opposed to the stick figures that actually appear under my hand). I'll have to make do with screenshots and copies of their bios.

I think Agoraphobic Man will see the servers out standing on the Storm Palace, his fears conquered at last. It was a looooong slog to get a level 1 character out there on foot, and I consider it his greatest triumph.

Djinn Rumi will be in Pocket D, producing drunken illusions and special effects, and standing a round for the house.

And Balanced, my first, main, and always...will call upon the Dream Doctor to use the Dagger of Jocasta one last time, just as Bal transitions between their two forms, and restore the twins to separate bodies at last. I'll create two new characters, one in her demonic image, and one in his angelic form, as a new crimefighting duo. (Though I won't delete the old Bal, ever--the two can still rejoin to face cosmic threats.)

Those are the ones that matter most to me. The others, well, their lives will go on. Naramie will finish college. Regular Joe will keep heroing when his office job allows him the time. Redemption Jack will watch his adopted daughter grow up, and someday spoil her kids rotten; they'll never know Grandpa was once an evil sorcerer.

Mostly, though, they'll go on as they always have. Just because we won't be there to see it doesn't mean Paragon City won't still be facing everything from street crime to alien invasions to interdimensional world-eating demigods. And our characters will still be there to protect it, or profit from it, according to their natures.

Mister Rik

09-02-2012, 04:32 PM

Mostly, though, they'll go on as they always have. Just because we won't be there to see it doesn't mean Paragon City won't still be facing everything from street crime to alien invasions to interdimensional world-eating demigods. And our characters will still be there to protect it, or profit from it, according to their natures.

That is beautiful :)

Tabby_Cat

09-02-2012, 08:28 PM

Wow. Crap. It's really ending, huh? My first and only MMO... man. I wonder if there's any way to contact my old SG, if they're still around.

Ah well. All good things.

Lok

09-04-2012, 11:04 AM

Crap. This just sucks. I don't get to play often, but I love it when I do. And now I will have to leave behind JB and all the others. :(

Quimby

09-04-2012, 12:36 PM

There are rumors swirling of someone else purchasing the game whole to keep it afloat...probably too good to be true but you ever know.

Jophiel

09-04-2012, 02:28 PM

Wow. Crap. It's really ending, huh? My first and only MMO... man. I wonder if there's any way to contact my old SG, if they're still around.
Well, it's free to play so you could always just install and log in on one of your old characters.

Mister Rik

09-04-2012, 04:05 PM

"Can Social Media Make A Real Difference? City Of Heroes Players Hope So (http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/09/03/city-of-heroes-being-shut-down/)"

CandidGamera

09-05-2012, 10:00 AM

It looks like I never will make it to level 50, now. Damnit. It's been an awful week, and this is the toxic cherry on top of the sundae.

Lok

09-05-2012, 02:38 PM

It looks like I never will make it to level 50, now. Damnit. It's been an awful week, and this is the toxic cherry on top of the sundae.
Looks like you have to at least the end of November. And there is this petition ( http://www.change.org/petitions/ncsoft-keep-ncsoft-from-shutting-down-city-of-heroes?share_id=IlnfMQEguD) on Change.org for fans to sign.

CandidGamera

09-06-2012, 09:31 AM

Looks like you have to at least the end of November. And there is this petition ( http://www.change.org/petitions/ncsoft-keep-ncsoft-from-shutting-down-city-of-heroes?share_id=IlnfMQEguD) on Change.org for fans to sign.

I already signed it, and even sent a #SaveCOH message on Twitter. I hope they can pull something off, but I'm dubious.

And yeah, maybe I can pull together enough free time to hit 50. But I want to make sure I save some screenshots of all my costumes and all my bios for my characters too..

CandidGamera

09-07-2012, 08:03 AM

Got my screenshotting done last night. I am going to miss this game..

Sailboat

09-07-2012, 09:34 AM

Note that the Titan Network has released a tool that will capture each character's costume, description/bio, experience, influence, powers, slots, enhancements, and so on and preserve the info in a file that could in theory be used to reconstitute the character in a rebooted version of the game if that becomes possible.

It's strictly a lifeboat strategy, but it's something.

CandidGamera

09-07-2012, 11:19 AM

Does it handle multiple costumes?

Sailboat

09-07-2012, 11:45 AM

Does it handle multiple costumes?

Yes, they were quite explicit that it does. See here (http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=296875).

What it does record is your vital stats; inventories (enhancements, inspirations, salvage, vault, recipes); all costumes, including parts, colors, scales, and various options; all build information, including second and third build if they exist, and primary, secondary, pool, epic/patron, and ancillary powersets, slot counts and slotted enhancements, and Incarnate powers and slotting; and if you open your info window before running the utility, all badges including individual and supergroup badges.

What it does not record is any rendered graphical information, such as screenshots. It contains the data that describes your character, but not any kind of actual picture of your character. It also does not record supergroup information, including membership, base layouts, or storage bin inventories. Your temporary powers are not recorded. Also, nothing in your auction house or e-mail inventory is recorded, so if you want this data captured, be sure to pull your items out of the auction house or e-mail before performing the snapshot. Your Paragon Store purchase history and slotting of Paragon Tokens in the reward tree is not recorded, though some things are detectable via other recorded data.

We don't know what the ultimate outcome of this will be. Specifically, there is a chance that City of Heroes might be acquired by another publisher, studio, or organization, but that in the process the account database can't be transferred. If that happens, we will offer whoever acquires the game the algorithm...

CandidGamera

09-10-2012, 08:40 AM

I'll download it this week, then.

diku

09-16-2012, 02:11 AM

It's weird. I haven't played in years, but this still bothers me. Playing with the old SDMB group. Megs, Eric, Brianac4, Manuel Errata, Max Carnage, lots of others. I still think about signing in Johnny Daemon, but real life take precedence. I guess I just figure it would always be there, which is silly.

But for a year, the year I played basically almost every day, the year the I probably caused a lot of problems with my future wife (at the time, she's my wife now), the year that I thought nothing of the fact that it was 2 am and I was trying to farm wolves (and since I couldn't stay up for that now), it was great and wonderful and I will always be something I miss. When having a six slots full of SO enhancements was a big deal. When you could take an arch villain solo. When you still got the actual printed comic in mail. Before Smoke Grenade got nerfed. Or invincibility. I remember trying to play from a terrible company issued laptop on a hotel connection because I wanted to make sure we could finished something. It shouldn't bother me that it's going away, because I haven't payed or played in forever, but it does. I signed on right after the beta finished. I feel like something I helped build is going away.

Guess that's all part of being an adult, but still, that year that I went to 50 was great. Just wish it was going to stick around.

Oakminster

09-16-2012, 02:18 AM

I haven't played this game in years, but I'd sad to see it go. I won an "award" of sorts for best thread (maybe best humor thread--something like that) on the official forums years ago. It was a "Ask the Newbie" thread as my main (and only 50), Angus McKenzie. The "award" was merely online recognition with an official mention in the forums, didn't even get a free month subscription extension or anything.

Brainiac4

09-16-2012, 08:56 PM

diku, those days are part of the reason why I love this game. The memories are awesome. I remember farming the wolf mission with Johnny Daemon many times on Thermocline. I don't think I died too many times. ;)

For me, the thing that I want (aside from screenshots of all my characters in their costumes) is the music. The little musical vignettes for each of the zones are programmed deep in my brain - when I hear the Copper District music, I know exactly where I am. I don't know who composed them, but they're a genius.

http://paragonwiki.com/w/images//c/c0/SteelCanyon_CopperDistrict.ogg

Tabby_Cat

09-16-2012, 09:19 PM

Yeah, for a time I helped to organize "Fight Night at the Golden Giza" on Virtue.. ah, university. I think some of those videos are still up on youtube...

I never did do those shard TFs, except for the first one? The end was amazing.. Ah well.

CandidGamera

11-26-2012, 08:34 PM

Guys, I'm rolling out Shadow Stranger this final week - going to make the push to 50. If any of you are still around on Virtue, Hero-side, let me know.

Mister Rik

11-26-2012, 09:42 PM

I have a bunch of characters on Virtue, but alas, none of them are anywhere near 50. In any case, I just haven't had the heart to log into the game lately. I've made a huge pile of screenshots of all of my characters in all of their costumes, and went ahead and put a lot of my lowbie characters into the secondary costumes I'd designed for them in advance, and got screenshots of those as well.

Hopefully, some time this week I'll have the time to do a final character export of all my characters (using the tool that Titan Network came up with), and then just hope that some way, somehow, the game comes back in the future.

CandidGamera

11-27-2012, 07:55 AM

I've got my screenshots and exports - but I've been playing the game since launch, so I'll be damned if I don't get somebody to level 50. Stranger's at 48, halfway to 49, so it shouldn't be hard.

CandidGamera

11-28-2012, 08:32 PM

Easier than I thought - got into a Rikti Mothership Raid yesterday - that's all it took. Any content that folks recommend I should do before the game goes dark, considering the time remaining? I'd been picking on the original Praetorian arcs..

diku

11-29-2012, 09:49 AM

For those that used to be in the CECIL group (way back in the day), Culex still has an archive of screenshots up: http://sdmb.culex.us/extra/. Found a bunch of mine.

Max Carnage

11-30-2012, 01:16 PM

I've published my tearful farewell to CoH on my blog if anyone wants to see it. Full of screenshots.

Sigh...

http://wp.me/pNjBC-1gm

CandidGamera

11-30-2012, 01:21 PM

I've published my tearful farewell to CoH on my blog if anyone wants to see it. Full of screenshots.

Sigh...

http://wp.me/pNjBC-1gm

Nice. I have an absurd number of DC comics characters done in the CoH costume engine. Maybe I should post those somewhere.

Jophiel

11-30-2012, 01:51 PM

Any content that folks recommend I should do before the game goes dark, considering the time remaining?
Start World Wide Red and leave the game angry ;)

My old ISP still has my images uploaded (http://my.inil.com/CF/C8/edamoth/COH/) from the early days of City of Heroes. Mother Marie was in CECIL for a bit but I dropped the game for a while when CoV beta came out and the group was pretty defunct by the time I returned. Later costume options were a lot more elaborate but it's nice to check out Memory Lane.

In a funny way, I lucked into a bit of closure. My first real "main" was a Rad/Rad defender named The Polish Princess. She had a backstory about being irradiated in the womb when her scientist mother was investigating some Nazi machine, her mother dying and PP eventually taking the fight to the 5th Column. I was disappointed when the 5th was replaced by the much lamer Council. But eventually the 5th returned with the Reichsman task force. Polish Princess was my first lvl 50, beat the Reichsman TF and I sort of felt like her story was done with that victory. I kept playing and other characters had other stories but that was the closing chapter that really meant something to me.

Quimby

12-01-2012, 09:26 AM

RIP City of Heroes.

I went through and at least looked at all the characters I made on the selection page. My attempts at playing some characters one last time on Virtue was thwarted by a combination of server crashes and queues which seemed oddly fitting for some reason.

Luckily my two mains, a hero and a villain, who are also my only 50s, were on Protector. I left my villain at the top of the WSPDR building and my hero at the top of Atlas' Globe and said my farewells and logged off.

Amateur Barbarian

12-01-2012, 10:59 AM

RIP City of Heroes.
Not too often you have to sign off on a whole world. Gahd, the number of details I remember about odd corners where I hung out, farmed a particular foe, or just figured things out is immense.

Parked all my mains on the same pillar in Atlas City, waiting for a future callup. I know a number of SGs etc. were planning to start major task forces right at the last minute... call it the Valhalla option.

Can't decide - seriously - if it's sad or stupid to feel so shitty about the shutdown.

smiling bandit

12-01-2012, 11:43 AM

Can't decide - seriously - if it's sad or stupid to feel so shitty about the shutdown.

If you really loved Chess, and spent a great deal of time hanging out with people at the chess club after school, and had all kinds of friends and great games to remember, then I don't think it would be stupid or sad to feel a sense of loss if the school decided that NO! No-one would ever be allowed to play chess, ever again, never ever ever.

Brainiac4

12-01-2012, 11:50 AM

I'm going with sad. I sat there last night, playing the last minutes I could, with tears in my eyes. Thermocline went out flying - I logged in, took off and never touched the ground again for his last hour. He spent it cleaning up Steel Canyon, the place where I first took flight.

And then this morning, more tears as I watched this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9IFDGRp6tk

So many great memories. I got screencaps of all of my heroes from the selection screen, so I can remember them.

Amateur Barbarian

12-01-2012, 12:18 PM

If you really loved Chess, and spent a great deal of time hanging out with people at the chess club after school, and had all kinds of friends and great games to remember, then I don't think it would be stupid or sad to feel a sense of loss if the school decided that NO! No-one would ever be allowed to play chess, ever again, never ever ever.
Good perspective, thanks... except that it's not a school ban, it's a world-wide ban. Throw away your chess sets and your Fischer and Koltanowski - you aren't even allowed to think the word 'chess' again.

Maybe one day there will be an explanation. Myself, I think there was backroom money to take away competition from DC/Marvel Universe. Nothing else explains the refusal to let the game continue, in other hands, at any price, etc.

Talk about supervillains. We need a Task Force... oh, wait, we can't say those words any more.

Lok

12-01-2012, 04:09 PM

And I was on the road. Didn't even get to log in on the last day. Wasn't there much the last year, but I will still miss it.

Brainiac4

12-02-2012, 08:07 AM

We missed you. I couldn't bring myself to log on for most of the last couple of months, but being there at the end, with CECIL, was... good. It felt like a little bit of closure.

I never did get to make my City of Heroes machinima music video of Steve Burns' "Mighty Little Man" starring Justice Blues. But I stilll think of it whenever I hear the song.

Der Trihs

12-02-2012, 08:18 AM

I also couldn't bring myself to log in until the last few minutes to see the game off, it was just too painful and futile.

Mister Rik

12-02-2012, 02:02 PM

I logged in one of my characters, took her to Atlas Park and just logged her out under the statue. I hadn't had the heart to log in for most of the last couple months. For a while I was logging in periodically just to move my characters around to different Day Job locations, but even that felt pointless after a while.

So I thought I'd try to play a bit on the last day, but ... I've been back to playing WoW since September, and I found myself having the same problem I had when I first started playing CoH, namely controlling my character's movement. They just handle so differently. Not better or worse, just different. Mostly a speed thing - CoH characters move a lot faster, and of course the physics are a bit different between the two games.

Onomatopoeia

12-02-2012, 03:44 PM

I didn't bother logging in. There was no point. I wasn't an avid player, but I did play a few times a month over the last, what, 8 years? Most of my characters were on Virtue, Champion, and Justice, and most had gotten to 50, although I had a few who never went beyond level 3.

My Invul. tank never did get to do Eden Trial. Oh well. :(

I will miss the game.

Der Trihs

12-02-2012, 04:58 PM

Maybe one day there will be an explanation. Myself, I think there was backroom money to take away competition from DC/Marvel Universe. Nothing else explains the refusal to let the game continue, in other hands, at any price, etc.I always suspected personal spite. Some executive who hated CoH or Paragon Studios or just catering to "Western gamers" got promoted and used his new position to rip it all down. Shut off the game, destroy Paragon Studios, refuse to sell to anyone. The refusal to make a profit just didn't look like a normal corporate decision to me.

Amateur Barbarian

12-02-2012, 05:29 PM

I always suspected personal spite. Some executive who hated CoH or Paragon Studios or just catering to "Western gamers" got promoted and used his new position to rip it all down. Shut off the game, destroy Paragon Studios, refuse to sell to anyone. The refusal to make a profit just didn't look like a normal corporate decision to me.
Yeah, gotta pander anime pablum to the insane Korean players. All else is dust beneath the wheels.

Is there any substitute for CoH out there? Intelligent, open, complex, good community - and NOT elfy-welfy-magic-swordery?

Jophiel

12-02-2012, 06:31 PM

Is there any substitute for CoH out there? Intelligent, open, complex, good community - and NOT elfy-welfy-magic-swordery?
The other two superhero MMO's are DC Heroes and Champions Online. Both are free to play so you can try them.

A number of CoH players went to Secret World, a modern era paranormal MMORPG. It's interesting plotwise and has some nifty concepts but I wasn't feeling it when I tried it out.

Quimby

12-02-2012, 06:44 PM

I saw an unconfirmed rumor that NCSoft was asking $80 million for the CoH IP which is ridiculous and basically an unvitation to sell.

As far as alternatives, I tried both Champions and DCOnline. I just couldn't get into Champions. What is available to you for free was too limited and the game play didn't make me want to pay.

DCOnline was much more fun. I wish CoH had their graphics engine but had CoH's game play. I wasn't a fan of the gear system but I know CoH was the exception in that regard and my experiences with SWTOR helped me pick it up pretty quickly.

I really loved how CoH's combat was very simple but every deep. Other MMOs seem much more "twitchy" in their combat.

diku

12-02-2012, 07:11 PM

I had signed in a few times since they announced the closing, actually did a story arc, but just didn't have my heart in it anymore, since I knew it was all going away.

Signed in the last night and went to the CECIL supergroup base. Culex, Balanced, Max Carnage, Candid Gamera. Just hung out there until it was time. Missed JB and others, but it was a fitting end. Signed out before the whole thing fell apart.

Weird, cause I always felt like it would be there.

Amateur Barbarian

12-02-2012, 08:42 PM

Weird, cause I always felt like it would be there.
That says it all. A good part of my online time in the last year or two has been to just log an alt in and wander - familiar places, new corners, hang out on beaches, whack a few bad guys... I thought it would always be there to escape to. Even after seven and a half years, there was always something worth going to see.

Right now I have an overpowering urge to go cruise Peregrine, or Steel, or... haven't been to Boomtown in a long time.

Shit.

Der Trihs

12-02-2012, 08:55 PM

Weird, cause I always felt like it would be there.So did I, or at least for a very long time. That after all is the usual pattern for older MMOs, or so I've always understood; first they stop new development, then they start shutting down servers, and then the last server runs pretty much indefinitely to cater to the last little hard core of fans. There's no point in just shutting it all down when the original development costs have been paid off and there's still people there willing to pay; that's the sort of thing that happens to new games that look like they won't even make back what they cost to make.

What I expected is that eventually CoH would stop development, lose servers and eventually just be reduced to a last server or two left running, with the only new content being MA missions. A process that I expected to be years away, there were no signs of anything like that happening. I was totally blindsided by them just deciding to shut it all down, refusing to sell, and destroying Paragon Studios to boot.

Right now I have an overpowering urge to go cruise Peregrine, or Steel, or... haven't been to Boomtown in a long time.I know the feeling; I keep having the urge to visit some place I haven't been in a while; the Shadow Shard, hang out and listen to the Seed of Hamidon in First Ward (whoever designed the sound effects for that thing did a great job), etc. There's all sorts of things I never got around to doing, characters I meant to play more. All gone now. :(