AquaJAWS

Like this in the announcement section that went up yesterday around 4:20?

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showp...15&postcount=1

Was Kalinda your first contact or was Burke?

If its your first character, most people will say this game is more about the journey than the goal. The endgame content currently is increasing, however still on the limited side compared to the rest of the game. You'll miss a lot of cool stories and fun things to do in the game by just PLing to 50. Not to mention the 49 levels of actually learning to play the power sets you've chosen.

If you're returning from before, they've added a lot of content into the lower levels as well. Praetoria is all new 1-20 content. New task forces and/or story arcs have been added an nearly all level ranges (depending on when you're returning from). Also, issue 21 is redoing a lot of the older early 1-20 content AND adding a new 20-30 zone.

Not saying you can't powerlevel to 50, but you'll be missing out on a lot of the game. CoH generally has something cool to do at nearly every level of the game. Most people actually have several characters just to go through the stuff they miss the first time through, because there is almost no way you can hit it all in one pass unless maybe if you turn off earning XP at some point. To that end, people asked for an option TO turn off XP so they could hold off leveling out of content if that tells you anything about if people rush to level 50.

Typically they only give respecs if there are changes to powers that would cause a desire to change powers. Its frequent but not guaranteed for each issue.

Also, since multiple builds have come out, they've typically been pretty good about giving multiple freespecs to account for multiple builds. The catch is that they don't stack so you can only have one freespec at a time, so what they'll do is they'll put on one with the issue, wait a week, so everyone has a chance to use the freespec, then put out a second (and so on for a third). I can't remember if its been an every time thing, but I know they have done this a couple times.

I'm gonna guess that the goggles are for some sort of HUD for the BatPod

I'm pretty sure this is wrong. You have to either have a subscription for a month (meaning you're VIP and paying) or buy 1200 points to get a token. Premium players only get tokens by buying paragon points because they don't technically have a subscription any more. Free players are people who have NEVER given money will of course not get any tokens because they haven't paid a subscription or bought any points.

Probably the simplest explanation to summarize it is after it starts you get 1 token per $15 you spend (maybe slightly less if you buy multiple months). If you're VIP you get a bonus one every year as well.

Currently 36 slots * $15 = $540. If you're going for all of them on a completely new account.

I'd wager that getting tokens every 1200 points is more intended to give the players without a subscription an opportunity to earn some rewards, not as a mechanism for subscribers to get all the stuff as quickly as possible. Its just a side effect of opening them up in that manner. On the other hand, if you want to go in and drop $500 on a game to get all of them, that't your prerogative and the developers won't mind the extra cash one bit.

I agree as well. That's usually how I do it when I want a stealth toon that isn't a stalker (or super speed + stealth works too, right?) Though doesn't the Stealth power along with a stealth IO proc accomplish the same level of invisibility?

Either way, I was going with what he could do with only taking one power and not needing any other slots. Since he took fly I would assume that is his preferred method of travel, so he could take stealth and add an IO proc and get both (flight and good stealth) with nothing else.

I'm not an expert on the tech aspects but it sounds as though there is a combination of many things causing your issues. It might be better to post this stuff in the tech issues section of the forums because the people that watch that section tend to be much better and perfecting the game settings and know what to tweek.

Personally I've never had any issue with the targeting in this game, so I'm not sure what you're saying is 'borked' about it. Have you tried keyboard commands instead of mouse clicking? Tab generally goes do the nearest targetable mob and I use that most of the time and it works great for me.

Your delay in the power activation...its a known issue when there's a lot of activity in the area. Your description of it being like a bad rikti invasion is accurate because its basically the same thing. The server is having trouble keeping up with the power activations incoming so things seem delayed. Its server side lag and there isn't going to be much anyone besides the devs can do about it.

Also personally I don't actually 'click' on many powers in my power trays. I tend to use the keyboard in that respect. That would eliminate the accidental dragging of powers you're describing if you tried that.

The rest sounds like you have your graphics settings turned up higher than your computer and video card can handle. It sounds like long loading times and trying to use the higher graphical settings on a less powerful computer. Try turning down your graphics settings (especially if you're trying to use ultra mode). The other option would be to upgrade your computer. Upgrading ram is usually pretty cheap and decent video cards that can run some of the ultra mode stuff are always coming down in price. The graphical requirements for the top settings have increased over the years so if its an older computer you will have trouble. You can try and tow a trailer with a civic, but you most likely won't be happy with the performance with.

I don't like that idea either, but at this points its only for tier 9, so they have 34 or so tokens to get before thats possible, and at that point, either someone has WAY too much money to waste on something they would have gotten for free anyways, or its for leveling an alt up a bit faster for half a level or something and they already have several high level characters. Even if they do spend the money to be able to use the XP boost the entire way to level 50 from level 1, they still have to do some work to get any XP at all (assuming its like basically turning on double XP or patrol XP for half a level).

Its not combining IOs. Its boosting IOs. They just described the effect of the boost by comparing it to being similar to when you combine TO/DO/SOs. Basically some of those lvl 50 LotG IOs will become lvl 50+.

I'll be willing to bet that even after choosing the reward slot via tokens, each character will have to 'claim' some individually as well. Thats about the only way to handle the rewards that have a choice, like the vanity pets, combat pets, melee/ranged powers, etc.

Items where like a character gets a costume change tokens, or merits, or respecs or whatever else, its not going to be 1 new costume change per account, its going to be 1 new costume change per character per account. Otherwise, their extremely stressed statements around this system of players won't loose anything they already have is false.

Some of the new repeatable stuff they're introducing though, like the unslotter or enhancement boosters, I don't believe they have specified yet if thats per character or per account, however I'm expecting those two to be 5 per account, and not 5 per character, especially since they are repeatable, people could VERY easily end up with some VERY over-powered characters from the enhancement boosters after several months.

My understanding so far, as simple as I can say it:
note, since its not out yet and still in development, as they said, its subject to change.

The reward tokens are little bonuses you get from spending money on the game either by

• Having the current veteran reward badges and years of playing
• Purchasing paragon points (1200 pts @ $5 per 400 pts IRCC)
• Being a VIP subscriber for 1 month
• Being a VIP subscriber for 1 year (so 13 total per year)

The Paragon Reward Tree/Bush/Shrubery has 9 tiers. Each tier has various numbers of reward slots that each take a token. You have to put a token into EACH slot on a tier to move up to the next tier, but the order that you put a token into the slots on the current tier is completely up to you.

Sucks a little bit that you can't just skip some of the more useless rewards as some have mentioned, but you still can some of the rewards out of the current order if they are more important to you. Plus we'll be getting these rewards 3 times faster now as well. Someone starting on day 1 of Freedom as a VIP can have what the people who have subscribed since day 1 of COH in 3 years instead of 7 and a half, and actually have a bit more than these 7 year + vets will have the day before Freedom Launch.

Tier 9 is a little special. The normal Tier 9 slots are repeatable and consumable and can be claimed as much as you want. There are also VIP Tier 9 slots that you ONLY have access to if you are a VIP subscriber. If you have enough tokens to unlock Tier 9 AND you are a VIP subscriber you may use your tokens on these slots. You don't have to pay an additional fee after what you've already paid to get you VIP subscriber status and your reward tokens in order to use them.

Each tier has its own set of rewards for just getting to that tier in addition, like access to the MA or to MMs and Controllers. If you are VIP, that already grants you access, but if you were ever to drop from VIP to Premium, you would have these unlocked as you move up in tiers. So IIRC MMs and Controllers unlock at Tier 5 as a tier reward. A new player comes in and subscribes as a VIP. Because he is a VIP he has access to the MMs and Controllers without anything else. If, before he has enough tokens to get to Tier 5, he unsubscribes from VIP, he loses access. If he has enough tokens to get to Tier 5, he retains his access.

Now, for the current subscribers, you have already earned many of the rewards that come from putting a reward token into slots, especially at the lower levels. If you've already earned that reward through vet rewards, I believe they've indicated that the token you earned for that vet badge will automagically be put into the corresponding slot. This way you don't lose anything you currently have in the game, but you also can't change the tokens to something on the same tier level. Going forward after Freedom goes online you should be able to choose which slot to place a token into though. In addition to tokens from the vet badges, they are giving you an additional token per year you've been subscribed so those should be able to be used to fill in any gaps and/or choose some new rewards at the time of launch.

Your misunderstanding the upper levels.

Here are the levels:

1st = 1 (1 cumulative)
2nd = 1 (2)
3rd = 3 (5)
4th = 3 (8)
5th = 5 (13)
6th = 7 (20)
7th = 7 (27)
8th = 7 (34)
9th = 5 infinite repeatables = infinity
9th VIP = 3 (37)

You can unlock ANY of the options on the tier once its unlocked in whatever order you want, but you HAVE to unlock them all to move up to the next tier. The 'T9 VIP' unlock the with the rest of the repeatable T9s. The difference is you have to be VIP (as I understand it). Thats why they are T9 VIP and not T10.

If you have 36 vet tokens to 'spend' when this goes online, you'll have to spend 34 to unlock all of them through T8. That leaves you with 2 to spend on the 8 possible T9 options. 5 are repeatable, 3 are the new costumes. You will actually only have to wait a month (since after this goes online you get one token per month, not one per 3 months) and you will have everything they have listed here. Anything after that you can spend on any of those 5 T9 repeatable options you want, or when they add more into the T9 VIP, you can get those as well.

The option to get tokens from buying paragon points isn't intended as a way for you to buy everything right now to get everything right now, though you have that option, but I think that would be crazy for someone to do since none of these things are really required at all in the game, just make it nicer. Its intended so as the premium players buy paragon points to purchase content, boosters, and such, they make progress in here, since they don't get 1 a month from the VIP subscription.

Its a nice way of saying 'thanks for supporting the game'. As VIP, you already are with your subscription, and likely getting these tokens faster, unless you just spend a TON at the paragon store, and in reality if you're buying more than $15 worth of things in the store a month to unlock stuff, why aren't you just spending that $15 on a VIP membership. But thats another issue.

Currently 3 iTrials live. 5 incarnate power slots. BAF unlocks Alpha, Judgement and Lore. Lamda unlocks Alpha, Destiny and Interface. Keyes unlocks all. Rewards from all 3 can be used to craft any incarnate power.

One more trial in closed beta due in issue 21. Likely a 5th due between 21 and 22. So yes, limited options, but they are expanding as expanding takes time. It is not the intention to always only have 3 options.