ZachsMind

...or maybe the ball should be available in multiple zones. Not at the same time. I mean it could appear in one of many zones and there would be some place where the ball needs to go, that would cause the ball to disappear from that zone. However, the 'goal' would not be easily marked. It could be a door or a building or other object, and once the ball hits that object it would disappear. Then a couple hours later it would reappear in a different zone.

So people would have to kinda happen upon it. It would not be like there's one spawn point in each zone. It could show up anywhere, and any one object or door could be the 'goal' that would cause it to disappear. No points awarded or anything, but maybe if you successfully find the ball and hit it with one of your powers, you get a badge.

I'd prefer it to be in Skyway myself. Talos doesn't need the traffic. It's already a central hub. I usually park my toons in Talos because I can get to pretty much anywhere in the game from Talos in roughly the same amount of time.

The Big Red Ball should go somewhere that doesn't currently have a lot of traffic. Not a lot of water, but it should have basketball courts, not that you could play basketball with it but it'd be silly fun to fail at getting a meter wide ball into a foot wide basketball hoop.

POS:
* Change defeat all missions to Defeat boss room.
* Place all mish doors in either Perez, Atlas, or Steel.
* Remove having to go to Azuria and Paula Dempsey.
* Lessen CoT involvement.

SYN: I got no complaints.
Sister Psyche: No complaints.

CIT:
* Remove the courier trip to Fareed Abdullah.
* Change Defeat all missions to Defeat Boss Room.

MANT: No complaints

NUMINA:
* Cut the Wild Goose Chase where you're powering the Shard of Kalak in half. Particularly remove "Defeat 20 Vahzilok in Faultline" and "Defeat 20 Sky Raiders in Terra Volta" as well as several others.

Aside from that keep all current TFs as they are, because if people are still getting the badges then the TFs shouldn't change dramatically from what they were when they started.

However, what we need now is a new set of TFs on top of the current ones, which are accessible from these Surviving Eight individuals, but that are wholly new and designed with lessons learned after several years of playtesting. So people can do the current TFs if they still want to, or they can click on Positron and choose to help him with a different TF that grants a different badge (perhaps leading to a different accolade) which features different bad guys and a whole new plotline. These new TFs would be slightly shorter, and more fun.

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I like the new Hollows too but do kind of miss the old excitement of trying to get through the Hollows with a new low level character without getting killed and having to start over again in Atlas. It was one of the few times that dying had any real consequences in this game.

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Not me. I don't miss that at all. In fact I'd like to see a full fledged hospital built in the corner of the map nearest to the Skyway entrance, and a new required plot arc where players help defend the hospital from an onslaught of CoT or Trolls (lower level instanced would be trolls. upper level instanced would be CoT).

I think dying should have greater consequences for higher level toons. However, before level fifteen or twenty it should be even easier than the way it is now.

Admittedly this go around I kinda cheated. I am currently using a PeaceBringer to get around in Hollows - that would have taken the edge off a bit even in the early days.

I've also NEVER understood why Perez Park has no hospital. Now THERE's a zone that's overdue for a makeover.

When I first started CoH years ago I was dissatisfied with Hollows. It was too tough for low levels, and by the time I got a flight power and could appreciate it, I outlevelled it. Hollows has always been a beautiful place in its own surreal and macabre way, but after my first two toons, I later made a point to avoid Hollows whenever possible.

The Gauntlet was a predominant reason. Having to traverse the terrain without a travel power to get to the next door mish was amusing at first, and at times challenging fun, but more often than not it was just frustrating in a manner that one should not have to pay to experience. Running The Gauntlet would bring about groans in the chat from veterans, and whining from the newbs. Where's the fun in that?

So until quite recently, and for some time now, I've gone out of my way to pretend The Hollows just didn't exist in this game, on more than one occasion leaving a PUG that insisted on going there. I happened by chance to get in a PUG where a mish was set in Hollows, and I was enjoying the company enough to put up with it. We were all high enough level so flying over the zone wasn't gonna kill me. Now understand, I had managed to avoid stepping foot in the zone (except maybe occasionally seeing the cop dude and running right back out) for over a year.

I zoned in to discover Meg Mason standing there. A fiery redhead on the top of that hill was not something I recalled ever having been there before. I was too high level on that avatar to really appreciate the New Hollows, but by the time I was done flying through the newly changed zone, I vowed to create a new toon just to experience it again for the first time.

I have not been disappointed, now I get ticked off when something or someone draws me away from Hollows. For a time Hollows seemed the only way to level from 5 to 10. The game seemed to actively push all toons towards going to Hollows with that introductory mission to the cop who lost his son. One has to actively seek out Perez Park and Kings Row or use the sewers to just skip up as high to ten as you can.

The toon I used to experience the New Hollows just levelled to 11. I think when I log back in I'm gonna purposefully up my debt to slow down my progress, I'm outlevelling the zone too fast this time. Enjoying it too much. I'm seriously considering creating a new Alt and starting it again. What used to be an annoying unfun experience to avoid has turned into a delightful amusement park of pain.

My dear War Witch: we are not worthy.

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I REALLY HOPE the token system doesnt poopoo on all the work I put into my alts. The reason I say this, is I got the impression.. with a few tokens people can just buy whatever I might have paid 45 million for..

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Not everyone in the game has the time to deal with the mess that the auctionhouse has become. I would bet concern for the casuals' experiance with this will matter more to them at this point.

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Has become? I was avoiding WentWorths for the longest time but recently it seems to have become more tolerable, or maybe nothing's changed and somehow I got smart enough to figure out how to use it, at least in a rudimentary fashion. I don't have the ability yet to wheel and deal like crazy, but I can sell what salvage and recipies I find with only some difficulty. Every once in awhile it even almost achieves what I would classify as "fun."

I do wish there were a better way to figure out the fair and just going price for things. That takes some legwork and not a few "learning the hard way"s. Like you sell something and then immediately afterwards you wanna slam your forehead with the palm of your hand; had you done it differently you would have made more inf.

Perhaps part of the fun of the game is some people just don't know that and other people take advantage of their ignorance? Not very heroic of some people, but there ya go.

I'm also not sure what playing the trading game has to do with being a super hero. However, it's not like it's gotten worse recently. If anything, it's gotten easier to manage.

Those green blazers tho. What an eyesore.

Those who accumulate tokens will have to work at least as hard at accumulating those as the people who bought at the consignment house. Time is also a resource. I'm sure it'll all even out in the wash. Nothing to worry about.

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I just had a terrible thought. What if the allowable mobs in your mission are restricted to the gladiators your toon has collected?

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That would mean you'd have to log in to a particular character before you could invent a mission. Granted, this is all speculation at this point, but the mission creation tool will probably be made available from the opening screen, after you log in and before you pick a server.

Why do I say that? These missions will not be server specific. If you make a mission, anyone who plays the game, regardless of server, will have access. Currently with the trading system, if someone puts up an enhancement for sale from say, the Triumph server, anyone in any other server will be able to see it almost in real time. I suspect a similar procedure will take place regarding missions. When you finish a mission, everyone in all the servers will see it show up on a list at about the same time, and will be able to start trying it out, regardless of which server you usually frequent.

So our mission design parameters won't be restricted to one particular toon, and therefore the Devs won't be able to limit our mission design to the badge list one of your toons develops. At least, that's my current hypothesis. Without more info, we're grabbing at straws currently.

If they ever do the "Secret Identity" thing with CoH, I'm not sure what I'm gonna do with that. All of my CoH characters have public identities. Since the game's backstory requires that all capes must register with the government, I fail to see what can possibly be "secret" about any hero's identity, in a city filled with heroes.

This day job idea is nice, but again, for most if not all my toons, being a superhero IS their day job. I imagine when not saving the world, they go home and veg on a couch in front of the TV.

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Sounds cool.
Does this include changing the power's color? Sorry if you already anwer this qustion

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That would require a LOT more work than what'd go into just a normal issue. A whole new game engine. This is something that's been discussed hundreds of times before already.

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Nope.

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Right. If you read that post, it's clear that a new game engine wouldn't lead to power customization. Power customization would require a retooling of the ENTIRE GAME, which encompasses "the engine, the hardocoded systems, the soft coded scripts, and the overall design decisions that those things were originally built around."

IOW, if we ever do get power customization, it'll take a lot MORE than "just" retooling the game engine.

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Actually from what I understood, it wouldn't involve the engine very much, if at all, but instead would be a massive, fundamental reworking of how the powers system itself works.

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*blink*

"a massive, fundamental reworking" of the power system in CoX would essentially mean rebuilding the game's engine. Massive means big. Fundamental means core, in this context. You'd have to make big core changes to the game, which means you're building a new engine.

So you two are basically arguing over semantics. Maybe the end result would look the same, but "under the hood" to a coder dude, it'd look like the same chassis with a new souped up engine inside it, and would probably cost twice as much to do as it would if they just started from scratch.

Hence that Other Game Which I Shall Not Name Here by That Other Company I Also Won't Mention For Fear of Banhammerishness. =) If you want power personalization? Don't look for it here.

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...Player Origin Story Arcs... This would allow players to create their own character origin stories. Influence and level advancement within the game might be great, but how cool would it be to have someone in the game come up to you and say, "Hey I know you, I saved you from ..." or, "Hey I know you, you helped me defeat ...". This is real recognition in the game!

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I'm hoping they already incorporated something akin to this into the potential for the Player Created Content. Only I wouldn't want it to be an origin story. I'd like opportunities to incorporate my characters into the mythos of City of Heroes, in a manner that doesn't usurp or contradict what's already there.

I imagine creating a mission in which a team of players are informed that characters which I have created are in trouble. They're told that a few heroes were going to a warehouse to fight some Freakshow guys but screwed up, and a contact asks the player team to go in and save them. At the beginning they'd rescue my controller (controlled of course by the AI of the game). She'd thank them by using her bubble powers, and would tagalong the rest of the mish to help out but the AI would be configured so that she basically bubbles the team once every three minutes and doesn't do much else.

Then near the end of the mish, after fighting a bunch of Freakshow, the team would come across my scrapper who's being held hostage. They save him. He thanks them by rushing into the last big room, almost dying, and then running back to the Player team with a bunch of Freakshow in tow saying "Sorry sorry sorry!" as scrappers are wont to do.

Provided the team survives that, they then enter the final room only to see my elec/energy blaster hooked up to a big machine, being operated by a Big Bad. The Freakshow are using my Benny Edison character as a human battery to run the machine, which is supposed to like, blow up Paragon City or something. In order to save Benny and the city, the player team has to take down the Big Bad Freakshow dude, and destroy the machine.

At least, that's what I want to do with this mission creation tool. Whether or not I'll actually be able to anything remotely like that, remains to be seen. Considering some of the plot arcs I've seen successfully pulled off particularly in the Faultline missions, what I have in mind is feasible. However, it depends on just how user configurable the mission creation tool is. Can I put a machine in the last big room, and then hook up a static version of my Benny Edison to it? Can I make the machine as tough as a Rikti Shield Pylon with the ability to shoot back? Will we even be able to use our PCs as NPCs, or will we be stuck with a fixed pool of generic hostages?

Some years ago now, before the game came out, before I got my hands on the character creation tool, I had a particular character in mind that I wanted to play. I had a name for him and the kind of things he can do. I still can't make THAT character in this game. I've had some false attempts. CoH just isn't versatile enough for me to get him just right. The closest power combo is the grav/kin troller, but it just wasn't quite right.

So with this mission creation tool, I'm not holding my breath. I just hope I can make something entertaining, with a few surprises, that other people will enjoy. Until we actually get our hands on the thing, what we can and can't do is completely hypothetical.

I just realized that I habitually log out almost all my characters at the same place. I go to the Talos Island monorail platform, and park my toon on the left corner, looking out towards the Pinnacle Apartments billboard. I'm not really sure why I started doing that, but with Wentworth's right behind the PTA platform, and Pocket D just a hop skip and a jump away, it's rather easy to get anywhere in the game from Talos in about the same amount of time.

...does this mean all my characters work for the Paragon Transit Authority?

About the TF merits... Will they be retroactive? Cuz I don't ever want to put my bubble troller through the Positron TF again. She only had teleport back then, and not hover. God, that bit the doggie biscuits.

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And even by your standards you should realize...

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Actually? By my standards, The Punisher is NOT a hero.

I don't currently have a character who uses guns. There's already plenty of video games out there where that's the primary attack: pick up a couple guns and shoot them. Lara Croft has two guns. That got old by the end of the first tomb raid.

By my standards, guns are about as fun as banging one's head against a wall repeatedly. It is for example the reason I left Anarchy Online. I'd rolled up a dude who basically that's all he did. He came up against something that looked scary? He'd shoot at it. That was the extent of the roleplaying in Anarchy Online.

I support the second amendment to the US constitution, because an armed society is a polite one, but I don't support guns in my gameplay. Not anymore.

If I'm gonna play a super hero, in a super hero game, energy blasts just seem more fun. Or cold breath. Or plant control. Or throwing refrigerators, cars, and pool tables at people. Even brandishing a sword is more interesting than shooting stuff. I'd been shooting at stuff since the heady days of Castle Wolvenstein. I kinda got that out of my system by around Quake 3.

But that's just by my standards. YMMV. =)

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Think of the hundreds of comic book heroes that use pistols. Also, pistols have been talked about for longer and more heatedly than shields have seriously been talked about, IMO.

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Perhaps the problem is coming up with the power sets. What powers would you give for dual guns? The only one I can think of is "shoots both guns at same time" ooh. ahh. How does one make a primary power set of eight different kinds of attacks. I guess "shoots left hand gun only" and "shoots right hand gun only." Okay that's three. now what? "shoots both guns at same time but the left one first and then the right one and twice this time for double damage." Okay that's four. I don't know about you but that gets old real fast. "turns around and shoots behind his back cuz it looks cool." okay now we got five. "bends over and shoots both guns in between his legs cuz it looks insanely stupid yet cool cuz his hat doesn't fall off." Okay that's six. I'm stumped.

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I have serious misgivings with player made content...

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I have serious misgivings about player made characters every time I come across someone who looks vaguely like Superman with a name like "Generic 058 195 780" yet still I wouldn't have it any other way.

I think it would be great if the guys making the game could focus more on the stuff players CAN'T do, or focused more on making it so players CAN, and less time on inventing generic material that doesn't really work. Why the heck was I fighting that Snaggletooth guy in Pocket D over and over again around Christmas time? My Elusive character woulda just gotten the guy drunk and found a few ladyfriends for him. End of fight. She's more interested in helping the Lost, cleaning up Kings Row, and giving back to the city that raised her. She could care less about Father Time.

The missions that led up to my Elusive getting into Midnighter Club felt like it had been made specifically with her in mind, but when I had my blaster and my scrapper go through it, I was like, "this is SO not what these guys would be doing."

I felt much the same way about the Synapse misssion for my blaster. Benny Edison was in hog heaven. Nothing but clockwork as far as the eyes could see. My electric blaster was SO in his element there. However, Benny has nothing personal against the Council, so the Citadel TF was very strange. Like watching Bugs Bunny in an episode of One Tree Hill.

So now, you will be able to pick and choose among a vast array of opportunities, made by players like yourself who also see what is lacking. If you don't see something that works for your character? MAKE ONE YOURSELF. That's brilliant!

Does this let the Developers off the hook? Not at all. In fact, it raises the bar. They'll be able to see what players want, and then they can up the ante. We'll do our best to improve upon what they have provided, and then they'll do the same.

Trust me. It's a win win.

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I wonder if there is going to be an option allowing you to randomly pick a player created mission out of the bunch. Then at the end of the player mission arc or each mission, you can rate and comment on them. This would help possibly find new good authors that aren't highly rated yet.

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VERY SIGNED

Both the random feature, and being able to rate and comment on other people's stories.

Changing the subject a tad, will it be possible to use one's own characters as 'hostages' or otherwise incorporate them into stories that people can experience? I'd love to meet other people's hero players as NPCs, and fight CoV player-made villains under PvE conditions. I'm a COH only player, and rarely PvP.

Actually there may be a way for them to do two issues this year. I'm not saying they'll WANT to, but it's not out of the question. The way to do this is to use material that has already been in existence before, and treat that as one episode.

They're already working on stuff for a new issue. Probably not ready right this minute, but may be worth putting out live within two months. Say around early October, we could get issue thirteen. If the ONLY thing available at issue 13 was the ability for "player created missions" that would probably satiate a lot of people. If not, they could also throw in something simple involving badge accumulation that led to a new power which essentially affected your character randomly, sometimes in lucky ways and sometimes unlucky ways. Sometimes your guy would be very powerful for a brief period of time, and sometimes he'd weaken. I mean, it is issue 13. Something luck oriented (but simple) would be called for.

Issue fourteen would fall right around the holidays. What they could do is take ALL the holiday stuff from previous years, and incorporate it into the game permanently. So players could opt to play Christmas any time they want. The ski lodge at Pocket D would be available all year round. Not just a couple weeks of the year. The whole father time thing? All year round. Halloween stuff? All year round. However, it'd only be available either in Pocket D, or from a new zone created for the holidays that was accessible directly from Pocket D alone.

Most of the content is already made for issue 14. They'd just have to implement it permanently.

(fast forward to six days later)

*crickets*

So... my roleplaying plot idea was THAT bad, huh? Ouch.

*wind*

(a tumbleweed rolls by)

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The characters that we'll be playing will be superhero types based out of a fictional city we created but other than that there really isn't much in the way of limitation as to the story ideas.

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I'll try to keep this simple. You can flesh it out as needed. If your imaginary city doesn't have a seaside to it, I just typed all this for nothing, but what decent super hero city doesn't have beach front property?

Before the game session starts, determine which of your players' characters are, shall we say, "attuned to issues of the sea." This can be a stretch, but I'm guessing at least one of your characters will have something in their bio history that would make them sea-worthy. If this is the case, you'll have to somehow work the following into their bio history, or at least explain WHY they don't know about the newcomers to your legends.

Also, determine if more than one of them are more interested in museums or antiquities. Is one of their alter egos a curator for a museum, or have they done anthropological studies before?

If none of your characters are either of these things, that's perfectly alright, but if they are, then you want to start your 'water oriented' characters as far from the shore as possible, and the history or antiquity character types should be as far from the museum as possible. Just to keep things interesting.

OR you can let them decide for themselves where they're going to start and play it by ear. This is already getting too complicated, isn't it?

At the beginning of the session, establish that today there's a bunch of antiquities which are being delivered to the city's museum by truck, but there's rumors that (insert your favorite baddies from past game sessions here) are planning on stealing them.

There have also been reports of 'gang activity' or fights among two groups of people at night down by the docks. Eyewitnesses never get a good look at the men, but if the site of a previous night's battle is investigated, the place looks and smells like fish guts were dragged through the place like an episode of Fear Factor gone horribly wrong. High intuitive searches would find what looks like a partial vaguely humanoid body part. Also, slime trails lead to nearby exits like the sea, or manhole covers leading to sewers.

When your shore people investigate the docks, they'll be confronted by members from two different types of amphibious humanoids. Both sides use basic weaponry like tridents and swords - no handguns. The Hulls can pass for humans but have webbed hands (three fingers) and feet and green hair. The Skee are scaley with fish-like heads but otherwise humanoid - even have twenty digits. Both sides claim to be fighting to protect the world from a gigantic sea creature. You can come up with the name, but I'm gonna use Lusca for obvious reasons.

They claim that if their people can get hold of a sacred relic somewhere 'topside' (on land), then their superiors can keep Lusca from destroying the world of the land lubbers.

Meanwhile, the people who you got protecting the artifacts that are on their way to the museum, encounter (insert your favorite baddies from past game sessions here). If said baddies succeed in getting the artifacts, they have to put the eight or so artifacts together in order to create this ancient machine that summons Lusca (actually think bigger than Lusca, and impervious to bullets, and likes to eat buildings, and smells like it crawls through fish guts - really super bad).

If your Players succeed in stopping the previously used baddies, both amphibious 'gangs' begin vying for possession of the museum artifacts. First they'll try being persuasive and friendly but when that fails, they'll resort to force, and there's a lot of them. And they can call home for reinforcements.

They each come from different underwater cities, both of which claim to be THE Atlantis (neither one is, but this is what both gangs fight over), and the leaders of said Atlantis-like underwater cities want to gain control over Lusca, so they can use Lusca to destroy the other underwater city, and then be the only Atlantis.

When the ancient artifact machine is activated, Lusca climbs out of the ocean, crawls through the docks and towards the museum (or wherever the artifact machine thingy is by now) on the other side of town, destroying everything in its path. It will take ingenuity and strength to stop her, and at the earliest opportunity she will continue forward until she gets to the ancient artifact machine thing. At which point she will kill whoever is controlling it, take the thing apart, and then crawl back the way she came, dropping parts of the machine absentmindedly over the city, one piece at a time, as she returns to the water.

Essentially all the machine does is make a high pitched sound only she can hear, which annoys the gunk outta Lusca. She'll crawl out of the water every time the machine is put together and activated, so the final chapter of the adventure should be determining what to do with the ancient artifacts to insure that Lusca's left alone without hearing that annoying racket.

(added after sending first time)
To clue your players in, the second the artifact machine is activated, any dogs in the city or anything (or anyone) with sensitive hearing, will react in some mild way to the sound, but will not be able to figure out where the sound is coming from. It's so high, dogs can barely make it out but they don't start frothing at the mouth or heading towards the device. If one of your players has sensitive hearing, a VERY high intuitive roll will lead him to behaving similarly to Lusca - but anything less than that will just mean he's getting a headache and wants to howl at the moon. (end of added edit)

Is that helpful to you at all?

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how about getting these supposed 3 issues a year out for once. we've had 1 in a years time and its getting quite boring.

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Issue 10 (7/24/07) + Issue 11 (11/28/07) + Issue 12 (5/20/08) = 1 issue, I guess you're right...

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Thank you Hellguard. I was a little baffled by this statement. I don't see how 3 issues in 10 months equals 1 issue in a year. Perhaps someone was just afk too long.

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I'm only on page eight thus far reading this thread so my apologies if this has already been pointed out.

Although technically there have been three issues in the past year if you count back from the date of the most recent release, there has only been one issue released thus far in the 2008 calendar year. So technically, both sides of the argument are correct. There has only been one issue released THIS year.

However, keep in mind that last year Issue 9 (titled BreakThrough - and my personal favorite) came out in May of 2007. So last year there WERE three issues inside the calendar year. Thus far this year we've only had one. Last year they successfully came out with three, tho they started relatively late and cut it close to the deadline. Let's take a look at the overall track record for The Powers That Be/en.

06/29/04 - Through the Looking Glass
09/16/04 - A Shadow of the Past

01/04/05 - A Council of War
05/04/05 - Colosseum
08/31/05 - Forest of Dread
10/27/05 - Along Came A Spider

06/06/06 - Destiny Manifest
11/28/06 - To Protect And Serve

05/01/07 - BreakThrough
07/24/07 - Invasion
11/28/07 - A Stitch in Time

05/20/08 - Midnight Hour

Two in 2004, four in 2005, two in 2006, three in 2007, and thus far this year, only one. Again, both sides of the argument are valid, if not accurate.

Compared to last year, the first issue for this year came out a little late, and we're overdue for the second issue for this year. Notice that there has NEVER before been an issue released in the month of December. That's because there's usually a holiday event that would overshadow it. So if the PTB are in fact going to have two more issues this year as promised, the second one needs to come out soon, and the third one still may not make it out before Thanksgiving.

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I feel like these invasions happen too often. I feel like they go on way, way too long. But more importantly, this long after issue 10, I feel like they happen way, way too pointlessly. Part of me really just can't believe that week-long invasions are happening eleven months after tens of thousands of us have earned the "Save the World" badge for ending the Second Rikti War.

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The fact we're still fighting Rikti a year after the second war allegedly ended? Sounds vaguely familiar to current real world events.

Feels like a political statement, if you ask me.

Is there perhaps some place where people are specifically discussing the ramifications of PeterPeter's Market Watch: The View On Blue? Cuz on my own I realized a few days ago that a LOT of people are selling the salvage item 'gold' for 250 or less, when you can sell it to ingame stores for 1000. So for an initial investment of 2500 you can make back four times that in a rather quick amount of time.

I've made a few hundred thousand influence on that discovery alone. I can talk about it now because 1) it's beginning to not be AS lucrative as it was at first anyway, and 2) It's boring running from Wentworth's to the store and back cuz I can't carry much salvage at one time. So I think I'm done doing that, but now that it appears this is something that's more prevalent among the market, where many items are being sold for less than they're worth, I'd like to hear other people's stories. I bet all of them are even more outrageous than mine, or the examples PeterPeter offered in his article.

..can we discuss that here, or is there another thread?

The other day I was badge hunting and happened upon that corner in Skyway that consists of a basketball court. There were enough Trolls loitering about there to make a basketball team. They didn't bother me cuz my toon was already high enough level to not phaze them, but they were just standing there. A couple were walking slowly with no sense of direction. They looked sad. They looked bored. They looked in dire need of something large and round and crimson.

I really wish I coulda tossed them a big red ball. That woulda been great.

Two years have gone by and I've lost count how many issues, and still no big red ball. For all the advancements and improvements CoH has experienced since its inception, the greatest travesty perhaps is that the CoH community still doesn't have its big red ball. Name for me one player or potential player who would either quit the game or never sign up when they hear that CoH has its own big red ball. Come on, GameDevs! With all due respect, this ain't rocket science.

/unsigned to the power of a googleplex

Oh I forgot to point out the way to overcome this running problem is to make sure your toon is fast. Wasn't a problem with my scrapper cuz I was really trying to role up a "speedster" and scrapper just was the best archetype for that kinda character. He was fast naturally, so even tho the mobs ran, it wasn't often a problem for him.

With SuperaDina (my new Will/Stone tank) it's been harder. Tanks aren't supposed to be fast. The game seems to purposefully slow them down, but I gave her combat jumping and am boosting up her sprint so it's cheaper to use (reducing endurance cost). Now she's almost as fast as most scrappers and can overcome mobs as they run. I also got both Hurdle and Swift which further add to her dexterity. This means I've had to skip some toggle combat powers in the early levels, but toggles are cumbersome before one can get Stamina at level twenty anyway. So it's no great loss.

It's kinda funny actually. Over the time I've played this game I've noticed most players using scrappers as if they were tanks, and often failing. I'm doing the exact opposite. I'm trying to use my tank like a scrapper. Seems to fit her character better. She is a Supa Troll, but she's not as stupid as newly minted male Supa Trolls right after a rave. I don't view the SuperaDina character as someone who just stands there like a wall of pain letting other people clean up around her.

In fact, I think she likes it when they run...

I didn't used to notice the running away as being a problem because first I rolled up a troller (Elusive) and took her to fifty, and when I wasn't playing her, I was playing my blaster Benny Edison (who's now level 42). So if the mobs ran away at all, I didn't notice much. I mean when you're playing toons with long range powers and little melee, running's not often an issue. Then I rolled up my Scrapper, BreakThrough (upper 40s). Now I have a tank named SuperaDina (15).

Yeah. Mobs run.

This I wouldn't mind too much if it made sense. If you're playing it and you're thinking, "why don't they run? They're getting pounded. I'd run if I were them" and they don't, but then they do run before you even touch them, or just randomly. It's not believable, so it takes one out of the suspension of disbelief thing for a moment. You're reminded that a computer is operating these mobs, and they've been instructed to run either randomly, or due to some weird set of rules that don't make any sense in practice.

I don't mind that they run. It's that I mind they run too often, and with little provocation when they do. There's no rhyme or reason to it. Of course, the alternative is to compete with actual people and go into PVP which I'm very much not interested in. So I guess I can't complain, tho I do.