Angry_Angel

Quote:

Originally Posted by Baler Our team of 8 was on it's way to the last mission of the Ice Mistral SF.

Same-ish.

08-25-2011 15:19:16 HIT Colonel Duray! Your Bitter Freeze Ray power had a 95.00% chance to hit, you rolled a 89.26.
08-25-2011 15:19:16 [Admin] Attention! 5 minutes, the City of Heroes and City of Villains servers will go down for maintenance reasons. Further information can be found in the City of Heroes Forum.
08-25-2011 15:19:17 [NPC] Colonel Duray: You ain't got nothing!

He was wrong! We had five minutes and finished him in time to park for dayjobs.

I like the reverse - switching from rocket board straight to [Walk] as you arrive at your destination is ridiculously fabulous. I can't wait for magic carpets and flame-powered segway scooters.



Cat armies + segways



= CoX Win!

Play them all. Make new ones for sets you've never tried. Take turns burning their patrol Xp -one mission, one alt at a time. At some point, you may find yourself wanting to go back to one in particular.

Right now, I only have one level 50. The rest are incarnate 51-53(32 characters) and level 5-13 (12 characters). That may seem odd but my level pact partner and I are working on a pair of 48's.

They have very little time to play so all we do is keep making new baby alts to run in different ways. One pair starts with a hero contact, another in Mercy, another only runs random AE missions that look entertaining, another is in Praetoria. We just run maybe one mission per duo. Our goal is to whip out the patrol Xp and switch alts. Rinse. Repeat.

At some point, instead of rotating as planned, we found ourselves always opting to go back to our db scrappers over and over, duo'ing every tf, arc and accolade along the way. The best part is, of our dozen level pacted "lowbies" that see a mission a month, we already have clear cut favorite pairs that will be our next focus.

ROFL. I just thought of a mini game for Atlas. Rocket Car from AE to the Tram. Go go go.

Best time to post!

• The global on my main account was changed to @Ara for the sake of simplicity. It's an abbreviation of my main heroine's original name, Aranita.
• My forum name was changed to Angry_Angel for the same reason. It's the supergroup I've belonged to for nearly seven years. Easier to find me for a quick ranty forum-mail from the member's list.
• I did change my character's name once from Aranita (little spider) to Una (feminine version of one). She's a Spines/SR and an angel - awkward combination without knowing her story.
• Yes.

Her current bio begins with: "A daughter of Eve in form only - an Angel. Her wings, set six pair, frenzy at speeds imperceivable to the human eye. Only in battle, when they fracture and shard, when her spar-plucked bones spindle into enemy flesh is she fully revealed."

She was made October 29th, 2004 - shortly after noon in a small burb called Galaxy City well before wings and much more attractive spine alternatives were introduced in the game. For a celestial with ever breaking appendages, she kind of looked like a spider in the shadows. Before your post, I was procrastinating on an extended backstory to explain her original name and the reason for the change:

"The Winged Widowmaker-

Before she was Una, she was called Aranita - the little spider. To awestruck onlookers that's how she first appeared, at twilight, cast as a spoked shadow which flickered furiously against the earth's floor and cliff walls. Not physically visible to the innocent in those days, only ever to the wicked once pierced, Aranita was a tale patched together from the mouths of children. Such a story, with evidence found in morning light, frightened even the most cynical adults in their village. Their collective stories echoed the vision of an ever-changing woman's silhouette; "she had a six, eight, no.. perhaps it was ten and two legs". Some regarded the strange formations as arms. Long, twisting spindles that arched from behind her hourglass torso and reached out in every direction. "Legs don't have hands..." said one observant child. "Though... she carried with her not one weapon." Terrifying more that the appendages broke off at times, piercing deep the other shadows, rendering lifeless the invading armies to their homeland. And so it was, the angel with broken wings set six pair as Seraphim's are, was first named by the children along the Mediterranean coast of Hispania."

As for the change, she doesn't really have a name so much as carry the name others call her for that time. Now living in a modern city populated by men and creatures far more interesting than herself and absent of wide-eyed children with fantasic stories.. she no longer needs to be known as a spooky little spider (also, the character has always been shorter than average) to invoke any measure of terror to outsiders. Her current name, Una, is also another nickname tagged on by others from a different time, place, and perspective. I hope to finish that part of the story soon.

Not so much. I have some fairly simple names like "Alt" and "Vamp" and "Freeze Frame". Aranita was refitted on a crab spider. To this day, most of my friends call me Ara and it's only strange in a Skype call for events or marathon chatter when half call me "Are uh" and the other half call me "Air uh". I think I prefer "Are uh".. not sure.. after all these years, so I just let people call me what they prefer. At the end of the day, the name is only really important to me so I'd feel childish correcting anyone when there's shard-dropping critters to skewer by the hundreds.

High five! Same here.

On a related note, one of my pet peeves is other people applying characteristics on my characters. My villainess main is possibly of extraterrestrial origin. I say "possibly" because she was salvaged from a sunken alien ship. Could she be an alien orphan? Maybe. Could she be a human child injected with gene-altering perservatives as a food source for the long trip home? Possibly. She doesn't know. Heck, I don't know. The important thing to me is origin of her name and how it shaped her.

I couldn't think of a "cool" alien name to save my life. Finally, I begrudgingly popped open thesaurus.com and typed in "extraterrestrial". Don't get me wrong, I love that site! Sometimes I feel like an addicted newblette always having to hit it over and over again for ideas. So.. extraterrestrial led me to "alien" (which would have been too flat) which led me to "exotic". Exotica was perfect. It fit what she possibly was and what she was to the people who discovered her. This is her bio explaining that.

So why do I get a scrunched up look on my face over her name? All that effort to find the perfect name for a small alien lifeform and time carefully condensing her story to fit the biography character count.. and my friend XYZABCY said, "Sounds like a ******'s name." It's ok. He can't admit the strong brotherly love he has for her. :P

And no, I'm never changing her name.

No kidding.

Side note, if there ever was a female only server ( someone mentioned that long thread to me the other day), I wouldn't go. I've gotten a fair share of ****** comments but I'd rather handle it myself. Besides, some of the worst comments are from other women. I run my own Sg and often run my own teams, farms, badge runs, events, skype calls, etc. No one's running me off. If you really cross that line, I let you know or let you go.

Most important reason - "I smile big every time I see my new name". Right on.

Thank you for sharing with us! I don't have time during a triple axl ITF to Keyes run to interact in any meaninful way with other people's characters save reading a bio while waiting for folks to switch alts for the next team. I enjoy threads like this. If there's one thing I could stick on the wish wall, it'd be to have a sub-forum dedicated to all things personal about characters: Character bios, names, costumes, backstories. I realize there's a roleplay section but there's plenty of people who don't roleplay.. but do theme their character and spend a great deal of time carefully carving out their alts like a spirit totem pole - each having their unique attachment and meaning to the player.

.. I used to collect Barbies until about 2004. City is my very first (and only) "video" game. Not just first MMO... first walking talking squawking gawking game. Coincidence, I think not.

Barbie is also probably why I'm crazy about the base editor. My parents couldn't afford the mansion. We borrowed a couple of milk crates (which made for a great highrise) and my dad brought home sample books of wallpaper and carpet remnants from a local furniture store. Barbie never had matching walls but her place was one of a kind.

Maybe that's why my OCD can deal with the abrupt change in base doorways.

This place certainly isn't boring. If there's one thing everyone should know about the City.. it never sleeps and "we" never have to. You can:

- become a big game hunter and badge your little heart out for six months
- base edit elaborate underground complexes with Talsorian water features for six months
- write expanded backstories and roleplay for six months.. and you can do it in leet and some people will still understand you!
- learn to PvP and run amok in leagues or RV for six months
- run every single story arc in Ouros for six months (then switch sides!)
just make sure and start backwards from the level 50 content to the tutorial so you can pretend you've really turned back time and can't hear that one obnoxious guy yelling in a Master run on Skype because you're .. shrinking.. oh noess...
- host a string of events... some of which LAST for six months
- recostume every single alt every six months
- level using other people's AE arcs for six months using six different powersets you previously thought were "teh lulz"
- assemble your friends every six months to figure out the lastest Mo run
- find something to post at least once in here every six months
- run a supergroup and enjoy the challenges it alone provides for six years
- etc.

Really a solid deal - six (sixteen?) games for the subscription cost of one.

We did recently without any nukes.

06-28-2011 22:21:25 Congratulations! You earned the Midnight Dodger What Dodges At Midnight badge.

I am almost positive no one cast a temporary pet. I say "almost positive" because of the circumstances - we decided to hit a speed Apex/Tin combo and brought along a couple of folks who had never done either. We're on Skype and one casually asked if we could try for Masters. There was zero preperation when he asked and Dog casually remarked, "wouldn't it be funny if we did?" and I said, "sure, go for it." We ran in for the rush/crush on his spawn point and he was down before we blinked. I know no nukes went off.. and am -pretty positive- I didn't see temp pets but could be wrong as I can only account for myself (no pets were cast by myself or Dogma).

So.. if you don't have that badge yet, have heart! Nukes not needed. Temp pets would be optional. Our standard run involves running in, hitting glowies and immediately heading to his spawn point. If you have pets, cast them asap. Crush him before the minelayers come out.

We're now working on getting our group's badgers their Master Keyes and are excited about how much easier -that- will get over time as new Incarnates are unlocked and our regular players get more and more experience in.

----

Edit/addition: I went back to read where the conversation started out of curiosity.. and preach is absolutely right about strategy:

^5

Also noticed this. Here's what I'm seeing on my primary account (my second account hasn't earned or claimed anything yet):

- Redeemed each of the Ascension (plain, not Radiance) costume pieces. Claimed each of the Ascension costume pieces from mail Certification on my main scrapper, Una. As of the last few days, including today, the menu provided by Astral Christy still shows a few Ascension pieces as available to purchase to Una. To avoid confusion or double purchase, anything already redeemed (global items) shouldn't show. A few days ago, these items didn't show at all after they were purchased.

- Right now, the 3 Ascension costume pieces showing available to purchase, when logged in Una, are the Cape, Emblem, and Gloves. She has no option to "Claim" these items in her Certifications because they were previously claimed by her and no longer showing there (Certifications).

When I take her to the tailor, her Ascension Gloves are showing as unlocked. They are right between Organic Armor Thorny and Sinister.

I cannot find the Emblem or Cape anywhere but am almost certain I had checked and found them before. Regardless, she did purchase these items. I still have chat logs for that account showing they were previously unlocked.

07-07-2011 08:51:20 You may now access the costume part Ascension Cape at the Tailor.

07-07-2011 08:51:20 You may now access the costume part Ascension Emblem at the Tailor.

I give up

We did this as well. Last night, one of our friends was caught twice in five runs. Stated she is having problems with our 5 second warning in that she can't tell if it's a new or old warning.. seeing the same Request macro line over line. Switching macros for different messages on the same command would most likely throw off whoever has to hit that macro. I asked her to consider staying in Skype calls with us and I'd prompt her a bit earlier on getting out. Since not everyone uses calls, if anyone else has problems, perhaps league leaders should have someone else hit a macro with a single character (in League) to break up the previous request from the next.

- Obtain a full tray of inspirations before entering ( or hitting the combat npc in the hospital after dying in any phase or purposely suiciding at end of phase 3). We take 1 row of break frees and 4 greens. You cannot break free of AM's Freeze but am told you can of his hold. One of the other leaders was held on her scrapper and noted this is important for everyone - even if they have status protection.

- No flying, hovering, or jumping. It is more difficult to see obliteration mid-air and have seen it target someone mid-air twice who was jumping.

The exception to this is after the obliteration beam has fired. If you are slowed and inside a newly cast obliteration, you will need to zoom out with your travel power - fly out, etc! Noted exception to the exception (seriously, we studied every occasion anyone was caught)... teleport does take too long. We watched some guy hitting his teleport out in what felt like a slow motion movie moment.

- No long animation attacks. No Q'ing up a 2nd attack after the 5 second warning.. just don't Q as a general rule.

- PAN YOUR CAMERA OUT to more easily see your general surroundings. This might be common sense but I think some people don't play this way and wouldn't even think of this if not reminded.

- Don't cast Mutation right before or DURING phase 4. Rikti monkeys aren't very useful.

- Even if you are not going for the no deaths/no consoles badge, let him regenerate. I saw too many close calls with melee'rs on consoles caught under an obliteration 'umbrella' that AM would cast right over the generator. They wouldn't see it and assume it was cast elsewhere or were too slow on pulling out.

- No pets. Sure, we can petition after but it's far more satisfying to obtain the badge right away. To be safe, don't use anything classified as a pet. It was mentioned that creepers count.

- If you die with a freshly cast obliteration ray marking the floor around your body, hospital. Don't self rez! Some of those are slow. Don't wait for rez, don't pop an awaken and stumble out slowly. Just hit hospital.

- This is just -my personal hangup-. I don't like to work on the Anti Anti-Matter and Bunker Buster on the same run as Avoid the Green (we have for Bunker Buster when friends and guests don't already have it). I do press us to get as many terminals (also as a personal challenge) before AM hits the reactors. Less time on the reactors means you're not going in with people that are tired and forgotten the pre-trial instructions. Ripping off a bandaide. Just get to it.

- "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle." - Plato

I've seen plenty. I always recommend investing in a good group, joining a few good smaller social globals geared towards specific interests (speed groups have a dedicated base of focused players), the larger public server channels, and calling in a populated co-faction zone.

Make a quick, precise tag like, "Keyes assembling RWZ 2. All AT's welcome. PST! Spots filling fast!" - copy paste that to your SG/VG's and allow a few minutes before copy pasting to the smaller social globals (usually those, like your SG, have more like-minded folks who run well because they've run together as a unit more often).. fill any empty spots with the public channels and broadcast/request.

--

Public channels I'd recommend & why:

- Virtue TFs 2010 has plenty of folks starting and lf trials not just for Tf's. It's an active channel night or day.

- Virtue LFG Beta .. ditto. It's for any type of team, trials included. This channel did so well it filled to capacity on Virtue LFG Alpha and moved over to Beta.

- VirtueBadges09 is one of the oldest badge channels. You'll find folks who'll run Keyes just for the completion badge itself.

Again, tons of great smaller private channels out there. Team often and ask around.

Good stuff! Thank you for the guide. Handed out the macros to everyone. We ran a successful "Anti Anti-matter" last night and will be moving onto the other 3 badges for MoKeyes tonight and next week.

Good to see you join the base editing crew, Wild! As for "morph into one gigantic floor tile", do you mean something like this?

(clickable thumbnail)

That's our fitness center. The boxing ring has one large white floor tile with a smaller SG emblem floor tile underneath. When placed together, the SG emblem floats above the floor tile creating a "morphed" effect.


I used SG floor tiles for bedspreads as well.. though not as attached to other tiles. Just in case, this is what my vg base's bunk looks like...



Is that what you meant?

I'm still seeing mixed emblems in my base. Example below shows two SG floor tiles with different colors on the emblems and a glass panel with different colors than our SG colors:



To achieve this effect, I'd lay each of the one kind of tile then change the emblem and/or colors before laying down a different sort of SG floor tile. For example, I'd select green stars on a light blue floor tile and lay down all of the light blue floor tiles... then select pink hearts before laying down light beige floor tiles.. but not return to the blue floor tiles while still using pink hearts as my SG emblem.

Hope that works for you. Skype me if you need help. It has a "show your screen" option for calls and I can walk you through it.

I'm both an avid base-builder and a super group leader. While I do not have coalitions, I still chat with other super group leaders who have echoed the same sentiment as this topic in respect to several of your points. Some things I agree with and others I don't, but I am interested in the development of more functional additions and/or fun rewards for SG bases.

I'm not sure pathing was the (as big a) culprit in terms of lowered populations. Is it possible the drop seen in SG membership was because the groups you belonged to were more active in the PvP community (Arena/Zones) and therefore upset over a larger picture. I had a lot of PvP friends (those who lived in PvP zones and Arena) who could give a quarter less about base raiding but left over the changes affecting PvP in general. There's no base pathing in PvP Zones but the populations there have dropped as well.

I do agree that it is a shame they removed base raids for those who enjoyed it. Some folks prefer the controlled environment that Arena provides (duels & agreed upon restriction settings), some prefer the unpredictable challenge of PvP zones... since not all supergroups engage in PvP and not every member of a SG would necessarily volunteer to participate, I wonder if (and I realize this is somewhat a differen topic) there would a greater benefit to boosting tools for PvP 'leagues' and rewards. I have seen efforts for sign-up leagues springboard off forums but not everyone visits forums. Now that we have an in-game "league/q" system, perhaps e-mail the developers and ask about more robust group on group tools for PvP zones. It'd be great to see more epic battles wage in Recluse's Victory or Sirens (centered around capture the flag games there) because enough people were "on call" to zone in together (and not just relying on a "more heroes to RV" call in Arena chat which they may or may not notice while playing). Imagine a league window that split the teams against each other..3 teams v 3 teams for example (but not limited to or exclusive of Arena)...

If it really was the base raid itself, I wonder if they could provide a toggle of sorts. In the same way, we have different builds on characters. My only concern about it being the existing Secure plots is that some groups have chosen to use them and would lose hours to years of work. What if base raiding made decorative item intangible for the duration of the raid. No getting caught in a 10, 000 item maze. Then again, some groups might argue that mazes are part of the fun and defense.

They did in a way. Cathedral of Pain provides 7 day boosts to the individuals who participated in a successful trial. It has its pros and cons. Con - not every SG mate can make a scheduled event. Pro - SG's have 150 character slots. Those who never participate won't always reap the benefit of the 24 who did each week. One could argue that leaders should moniter activity and issue citations and removals but.. I personally don't want this to be a job. Besides, I have run both SG only CoP's and pug CoP's... this method allows me to invite friends and other channels so long as the two other team leads are SG members.







Extension of comment a few paragraphs above >> Correct me if I'm remembering this wrong.. I thought Secret and Secured plots have different permissions for the number of functional and auxilliary items that can be placed. While I'm more interested in function than form, again, I do know some base builders who might scream if their 10, 000 count base was rendered useless because pathing was once again reversed for the type of plot they chose to use.


Yes and no. I'd love if Sg's had the ability to add bonuses like buffs. My concern is the question of fairness (stated above.. rewards for participants versus non particpants and added duties for leadership). I don't think the original version of Items of Power is the answer but.. I have spent hours, days and weeks (no joke) casually and sometimes intensely thinking about what improvements to submit for consideration t.. and it always ends in the same concern. I will wager that there are more people who would be upset and vocal in forums, that would feel they were being given an unfair disadvantage for choosing not to join groups.

I'd love to see things added to SG bases that are functional but.. more "fun" than numbers affecting... so as to not affect or provide a disparity (even a perceived one) in player's abilities.

This could be anything from earning tailor NPC's in the base to improving storage to earning weekends in the Ski Lodge or allowing Sg's to set up scheduled tf's using in-base at-the-moment kiosks as sign up sheets instead of toggling to SG calenders or keeping track of who said what in a scrolling chat channel. Even AE extension desks where your SG can quickly find SG-mate created missions instead of sifting through 877664657687 arcs and trying to remember who made what. PvP training rings - how badass would it be to have a preassembled cage or ring to put in your base where folks could practice or blow off steam.. not the same as Arena but just as fun.

I don't even know where to start on this topic. I can only speak from experience. Even with scheduled hours and days, at some point when we got our initial new alts through Praetoria, there was still a feeling of isolation. Perhaps we took the concept of "home" too seriously Strange, again, considering we use a global channel to keep in touch. But I wasn't the only SG leader I knew who felt this way. The devs did add a nice signing bonus for Praetorians at level 20 but I don't think it's about the prestige for most SG's. It's about the comradery (even for those who do earn, it's usually about the comradery while earning).

[Edit] Not sure more types of groups is the answer.

----Now that our Primals are able to enter Praetoria, I wish the devs would consider allowing SG's/VG's to invite their members there as sleeper cell agents. Folks who infiltrate Cole's domain or folks who have the potential and are being lured to help Primals in retaliation.

I'm wincing because I do not want to come off as unappreciative of the transportation QoL's. Yet, ( Edit: I agree that) Sg bases are no longer as desirable and that was one of their greatest functional features. Earning prestige for 22 beacons, 11 pads, 2+ rooms versus ferry/tram/copter lines AND O portals.. No competition. I have six bases that do have every single beacon (and some have RP bacon!) but really, I'm not kidding myself to use our transportation hub as a selling point. Eden to Hive for Hami is nice but would those who choose not to join SG's become hostile to a beacon for the Shadow Shard or Event Message calls? Probably. (Edit: If Sg's provided teleport to each zone regardless of factionside would have some Non SG'rs up in arms. But if this did happen.. then I'd want more beacons per pad...)

If devs provided QoL to non SG transportation, why not even the playing field and give QoL -to- Sg transportatio? Instead of 2 beacons on a pad, maybe give us 4-6 beacons to a pad (even if the factionside you can visit remains the same) just like ferries and tramlines and copters. Less possibility of confusion when staring down 11 pads. Less cost to small, private, start up SG's.

I have mixed feelings on this one. Because my SG has run the bulk of communication off a global channel, I'm estatic that some old friends will have an incentive to come back, get nostalgic and sub up.. but like the idea of them having a channel to talk to us from their first day back.


Off topic solution yet on topic.. SG registrar would benefit from updates in the same way the team search window did. If they improved the columns and added a better search option, I'd be overjoyed. Add a column to list the global of whoever has the red star or add an option in the SG options to list a global as the "go to recruiter". Icons or added space to list type of SG: PvP, RP, PvE, Raid, etc. Sure, leaders can type that all in but I think not everyone remembers to do so and it would be great to have an AE-like filter. Sort by Group Type >>> "RP" brings up 18 pages of RP SG's. Last activity date of any member. Maybe not number of members since someone might have a SG of his 36 alts but perhaps a flag for "not inviting" versus "inviting (with 45 day flag renewal). Right now, you can search by prestige and alphabetical order. There's a wealth of SG and VG's that would benefit from returning members finding them even if officers have changed and don't post in forums.

I need a drink break and I'll post more.

----

Back! Can't sleep so here we go..

- Many groups I know have SG & VG sistergroups. Wasn't the old concern that folks could dip into the other populations goodies? That's changed. We're allowed to trade between factionsides now. Besides, we can't drop or take from an allied base anyway. It would provide a greater sense of comradery for groups that would have co-faction coalition chat on co-faction tf's and trials. Another concern was the RP aspect but not everyone roleplayes and there's entities we discover are evil only much later, no? I'd still want the rosters to remain "hero SG" and "villain SG" but just able to alliance. Sometimes you do work on the same assignments for the greater good. I'd call a truce with ex-patriot soldiers.

- This wasn't mentioned in your orginal post but one thing that was a "nail" for SG's was base editing in itself. The larger the member count, usually the smaller the pool of folks provided permission to edit. I know many many many many folks who choose to make their own SG and add each and every one if not most of their alts to have the perks of base editing without permission from anyone. I wish there was a way to tie in some sort of personal player housing to SG bases - best of both worlds. And I know.. a private SG of one "is" a SG but I'm more concerned about multiple player social network SG's.