Barata

Arc 30821: A Clean Break

Villains: Custom group with standard villain group mixed in later during arc.
Difficulty: Slightly higher than average due to custom mob behavior. Good for solo players.
Length: 3 average-sized missions
Objectives: 1st Mission - Defeat Boss, 2nd Mission - Defeat Boss, glowie, 3rd Mission - Defeat Boss, Mission
Ally in third mission
Alignment: Heroic

Synopsis: The Pool Gang were a bunch of locals who hung out in Kings Row pool halls. Being of diminutive stature, they tended to get ignored a lot, so they formed a gang/club. People notice a dozen four-footers when they're in a group. They used the explosion of costumed heroes as an excuse to put on tights and kick the Skulls around. Nobody cares if the Skulls get beat up (well, the Skulls mind it, but who cares!). A new addition to their group is leading them astray, so a friend and former member of the gang asks you to stop them before they get in real trouble. Sort of a "scared straight" scenario. During the three missions, you give them incentive to give up their tights, and you find out who is exploiting them and why.

History: This started out as a test of the AE system and a learning excercise for me. At first, I wanted to see what it was like to create a new villain group. The idea of all small people in bright-colored tights seemed visually interesting to me, so I went with that. I put some care into the design of the characters, making multiple characters and giving each a slightly different appearance. I kept thinking of the old silver-age villians you'd find in DC comics who had corny themes for their gangs: The Royal Flush Gang (all looking like playing cards), the Kite Gang (wearing hang gliders), etc. The Pool Gang was then born. Powers were chosen to (hopefully) be slightly challenging. The first mission was a test to see how it was to fight these little guys. Since I don't like anything I do to feel incomplete, I started to add a story as to why you're fighting them. After an objective was added, I realized I needed motivation on the gang's part, so dialog and more story was added. The inclusion of an established existing villain group finished it off, as it quickly makes the story feel like a part of the gameworld. It eventually grew into the 3-story arc I published. It's rated as "Long", but it's really just average-length missions

While it's not a tale of epic significance, it's a complete story. I added small details throughout the arc to make it feel polished and complete and I was quite pleased with how it came out since it was originally started as just a learning test of the new system. I've gotten positive reviews to date and happily sit at a 4-star rating, which is feel is appropriate as I'll admit it's not a phenomenal piece of work, but it's still fun and interesting.

And I present it here for you.

I have a PB and WS I've been slowly working with. Seeing them, I can fully understand why they want a player to have a level 50 character first. Even for a seasoned veteran, the first time you play a Kheld is a challenge. There's all those powers you get and not enough slots to place in all of them. I shudder to think of a true newbie getting PL'd to 50 in a day or two and then trying to roll a Kheld.

As for end-game content.... What I like about CoX is that for the most part, there really isn't much difference between the levels. There's no reason to rush through early content because later content isn't inherently different. Sure you have more powers and there are different villain groups. Even the combat is a bit more strategic in that you have more mezzing enemies. But the core of the game is the same. Teaming is the same, task forces use the same structure, trials have the same structure... it's not like the content is better.

I just mentioned in another thread that after having a less-than-fulfilling time on the Reichsman TF, I found myself in Talos so sent out a broadcast, got on a 20's team, and got exemped down. We had a blast. It's one of the reasons I no longer try to level my toons to 50. I just play them. If I feel like playing a dark defender, I pull out my 50 dark defender. If I feel like being a bubbler, I pull out my 41 bubbler. If I feel like playing my Earth Controller, I pull out my 23 EC...... levels don't really matter to me because the basic dynamics are the same.

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It's odd, though, at least from my perspective. I expect a veteran to want to level fast. After all, I'm traditional slow levelling's biggest proponent and even I can appreciate levelling fast now that I've done it all.

But what would possess a new player, one who hasn't seen anything from the the game, to want to level faster and faster? Doesn't it make sense to see the game and get a feel for it before you shoot for the end? I can only speak for myself, but I only look to level faster when I run out of interesting things to do and need that next level to get more. This shouldn't be a factor for a new player until at LEAST level 10, possibly until level 20. I remember back in the old days when I first got to level 20 and realised that ZOMG! It will take me all day to get a single level! This is horrible! THEN I might see someone look to level faster. But before that?

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My sentiments EXACTLY. I think the ability to use AE should be a 2 or 3 month veteran reward.

But then what would we have to laugh about in the forum here. Bad's story was priceless! I may roll a new toon tonight just to get on one of these teams and get a good laugh.

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I am hoping that these newbies will learn soon that it doens't matter if the team IS exemped up to level 50 or whatever, if you have two attacks you are not all that much good, and you are no match for a level 50+ NPC. The only person to blame for that is the greedy one looking [general] you in the mirror. And these kids are greedy like nobody's business.

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The whole story made me LOL, especially your description at the end. hahahahahaha

My new belief: AE doesn't make sucky players, it just lets them refine their suckiness.

If you have a character that doesn't have mez protection, you may find it useful to have it as a power you use just before engaging an enemy who has stuns. Popping it off before you engage Malta or anyone else who can stun you can shorten the length of that stun considerably.

I think the biggest impact on the game wasn't from any one mechanism, but the sum of many individual changes. Look at the history of the game....

When Hami-O's were the best "loot", the only "farmers" were ones that kept running Hamidon. Task Forces gave SOs as rewards, and since SOs were easily obtainable, you only played TFs for fun or experience or influence. Regardless of which, you played the task force.

Then IOs were introduced. Now task forces gave a chance on giving a VERY nice rare recipe (like LoTG or Numina's). Since you got a drop at the completion of the TF, there was incentive to: A) run a short TF so you can run more of them and get more drops; and B) run it quickly. The end result was that short task forces that can be run quickly were given priority by the players.

Then merits were introduced to make it a more fair system for getting IOs. It's indeed more fair as you more or less get merits based upon how long the average time is to complete a TF. The end result? All Task Forces are being run as speed runs to maximize your merit potential.

Then AE was implemented. Missions could be designed to maximize the amount of tickets you get in a given period, letting you get many many IO drops. The end result? More incentive is placed on missions that give high rewards with little effort or time.

Every change in gameplay occurred when rewards were given out for completing missions. I'm starting to believe that if ALL recipes and rewards were just made random drops, that would remove incentive to focus on the reward and let players put the focus back on the gameplay. There'd be no reason to try to speed through an ITF because there'd be no reward for doing so. The rewards would come from defeating the enemies inside the TF/SF.

Actually, that could be a good way of handling it..... make it so that rare recipes drop not as a reward for completion of a TF/SF, but only as random drops from mobs inside a TF/SF. The more mobs you fight within the TF/SF, the better your chances of getting rewards.

Agreed. The "obscenely long" ones, I'd be incredibly annoyed if we didn't cut them short a bit. The devs seem to have learned their lesson though as new task forces are much more manageable. The heroside Reichsman looked to be a lot of fun. I mean, who doesn't like beating up nazis? The final battle was fun, but didn't seem too brutal. Maybe the team build we had was good. We just kept concentrating on Reichsman and ignored all the other AVs that came up to us, then took them out one by one after Reichsman was down. The entire TF was only about 45 minutes, and we only spent maybe 15 or 20 minutes fighting Reichsman and the other AVs. Any deaths during the TF happened before the final battle as many players found themselves alone in the various areas of the missions, but facing 8-man-spawns.

Seeing as even if you took your time, the Kahn TF looked to be no more than three hours, that's about my normal playtime. Spending that time in the one TF I wouldn't have a problem with because I'd just be spending that time in some other mission. At least with the KTF, I can beat up nazis.

People have been answering my question, and I do like what I hear. It's good to know that people do enjoy just playing the game and whacking down the enemies instead of just focusing on the rewards. I was just totally surprised to see that kind of playstyle with such a new task force. I was also stunned when someone said in the global channel it wasn't worth playing because the merit reward was too low. He did get called out on that by a couple people who said "who cares? it's fun", which is what I was looking for. I think I'll try again soon, but put together my own team. I want to steamroll through it, not stealth.

Keep in mind that I don't mind running a speed TF once in a while for the challenge. I was just concerned that everything was being run that way now.

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Reward at the end. I have done msot task-forces so many times i coudl quote the dialogue from memory, and faught the villaingroups contained in them so often I could do it blindfolded (I actually did that once, with my dom - it was depressing how well it went). Also, an issue in more taskforces than not: I hate the exemplar system with a passion.

As a general rule I'd rather finish the task-force as fast as possible than fight every spawn between the start and the final objective. SOme enemies are moer of a challenge to fight (Cimeroran Traitors and the Soldiers of Rularuu, in particular), but honestly, even then, fighting the same enemies for hours gets old after a while.

I am very goal-oriented in generla though, in video-games and elsewhere. I don't do anything "just for fun" I do it to win - the more effecient path between me and my objective (whatever that may be) is the one Im likely to take. Taking longer than necessary for no significant gain in some other area is just pointless.

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Well, if "fun" isn't a factor, and you take away the combat, then what are you "winning"? Digital data in a virtual world?

OK. So I was just really really unlucky the last few times.

I can appreciate heading straight towards the boss and defeating everything in the way. That's pretty much how I'd expect to do it. I also don't mind not waiting for everyone. Rather, if people are zoning and on their way, I don't mind waiting a minute for everyone to load. If someone's selling or training, they can catch up later though.

The last several I've been on was very unrewarding because nobody even wanted to stay together as a team. They felt they could do it faster if they just split up. So we had people rushing to each shadow crystal, destroy it, and then head off to the next one while ignoring everything else. It was frustrating.

I can easily see skipping lots of the early task force missions (like Posi's) because it's brutally long and very repetitious. They were designed with a certain playstyle in mind that nobody really engages in (supergroups spreading the task force out over a couple days). But when the task force consists of four missions, I don't see the point of rushing it like that because, well, it's just four missions. I'll run more than four missions in an evening, I don't need to get that out of the way as fast as possible because I'm just going to be doing the same thing anyway. And every mob I defeat I get influence and possibly drops, so it's rewarding to fight your way to the end.

I'm just glad that I had a string of bad luck as opposed to this being the standard way everyone plays now.

I've run four task forces in the past week. Synapse, Manticore, Imperius, Khan. None lasted more than an hour. Khan was the one that really ticked me off. To put it simply, each task force was run to be as fast as possible so the merits could be earned. One player on the task force channel said that it wasn't even worth running Khan's because the merit payout was so low.

With each of the task forces, I spent every mission doing this:
1) Enter map
2) See that teammates who have loaded the map are scattered all over the place
3) Start heading out to try to catch up to any player
4) See the mission completion message appear

I was playing my dark defender. Defenders don't really work well when teammates are scattered all over the map. With the Manticore TF, the leader was a superspeeding scrapper who, it turns out, formed a team just for the AV at the end. Without a word, he would speed off and complete each objective on his own.

This was frustrating, but I put it aside. Then ITF and Synapse turned out to be identical. What really upset me was the Khan TF last night. The first new content in a while, a brand new AV, and I truthfully don't really know what happened. Every mission I entered was the same.... a scattered team doing their own thing. I voiced my frustration because there was not even team dialog saying what was expected of us. I checked my chat window to make sure it was working as nobody was talking. The leader, at the last mission, said "I'm going to stealth to the end and teleport everyone to the AV". I said "of course", hoping he'd recognize my sarcasm.

He did and then sent me a private tell apologizing because he only then just realized it was the first time I was running it and didn't know that, so they were just speeding through it. Considering it was just two days old, I think the majority of people probably didn't have experience with it.

The final battle was very fun. It was exactly what I was hoping for. My complaint for each of those times is that I logged on when I knew I'd have some time to commit to a TF and enjoy playing the game for a couple hours, and 40 minutes later, I was teamless again looking for something to do.

I know that by going through them faster, you earn merits, but I just don't understand where the fun factor is coming in. All the rewards in the game serve one ultimate purpose..... enhance your character's combat ability. Merits are used to get enhancements. Recipe drops are used to make enhancements. Influence/Infamy is used to purchase enhancements. All of these are to complement and improve your gameplay.

So why do people want to avoid gameplay? I play because I enjoy the combat. I like being a part of a team and taking on a bunch of enemies and blasting them to pieces. I enjoy being a defender and tossing around debuffs and heals, and dropping holds on enemies hitting one of the squishies. The combat is the heart of the game. Some people may see it as avoiding unnecessary combat, but I don't see the point of that. If the ultimate goal is only to improve the character, why bother improving him if you're just going to spend time avoiding using your powers? With each of those nights running TFs, we'd speed through and avoid combat, and would be left doing what? Looking for another team so we can engage in combat? It makes no sense. We just had that opportunity.

I think this all started when rare recipes were granted as rewards. The reward for the missions became the focus, rather than the mission itself. When merits were implemented, it was indeed a more fair way of handling the reward system. After all, why do a 3 hour TF if a 1 hour TF gives you the same reward? I think the merits, while being more fair, gave more incentive to treat all task forces that way. Before, if you just wanted a quick reward, you'd run the fastest TF. Now there is incentive to run all TFs fast.

I really enjoy playing the game, and I think that's where my complaint comes in. Two years ago, I'd log on and easily find a task force team and my evening was booked with lots of fun gameplay. Now, I can still easily find a TF, but there's little fun to be had. The only fun comes from the final encounter.

I'm not saying I want to leisurely stroll through every mission and make sure every mob is defeated, but I would like to engage spawns as a team and feel like we're playing rather than more or less just working for a paycheck.

What did I wind up doing last night after the KTF? I went to the consignment house in Talos. After handling my affairs, I sent out a broadcast offering my services on a team. When asked what level, I said "50, but I'll exemp down to any level. I just like to team with people and fight." We ran various radio missions and had a good time. Technically, we could have just run to the end of the radio missions and complete the final objective, but nobody really wanted to. They just wanted to fight and get experience, so there wasn't much incentive to hurry through. We'd fight our way to the end, and then get a new mission with a different villain group.

I had more fun exemping down to level 28 and running radios than I did on the TFs. That's kinda sad.

I'm honestly curious if anyone actually enjoys task forces, or if the enjoyment comes only from the reward at the end. I have my fireproof suit on, so feel free to cut loose (but at least try to keep it civil).

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<Insert my sob story about being gone this weekend and getting called away last night and missing my respecs on characters before the patch. Also insert statements of aggravation.>

Why can't granted free respecs stack?

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Because the freespecs are given out so that you can respec your toon to compensate for any changes that have been made in powers. Players would spec out their toons knowing that powers behave a certain way. After a major change somewhere, the power would behave differently, and players would say "if it behaved like this when I had to choose it, I would've chosen something else." So the devs give you a freespec to settle those complaints.

The reason they don't stack is because they don't need to stack. At most, you only need one respec to compensate for those power changes.

I'm very sorry for your loss, and for your friend and her family. It's a horrible tragedy.

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Global warming is ...

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I declare this thread successfully derailed!

Has anyone seen An Inconvenient Truth?

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I wanted to, but the timing was never good for me.

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But it does say that it's supposed to take Recharge Intensive Pets, right?

[/ QUOTE ]I haven't checked on a Defender, but I'm fairly positive that Fluffy isn't supposed to accept RIP sets, and my Thugs/Dark's Fluffy doesn't get them.

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I quintuple-checked, and Chazz checked too. When you hover over the Dark Servant power in the management screen, it says in the description that it accepts IOs from several different sets, and Recharge Intensive Pets is listed.

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What annoys me is that I trashed a level 40 common accuracy IO that was in there

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Just to check, you know that you don't need to trash the old enhancement separately? You can just drop the new one on top of the old one and it'll replace it. Normally not an issue, but it'd have saved you that accuracy IO in this scenario.


As for the bit about set IOs only enhancing powers of the same type, not 100% sure but I think that was specific to the recharge aspect - the recharge wasn't really meant to cascade down to pets' actual powers (hence a straight up normal Recharge enhancement would only affect the recharge of the pet summon, not its powers), but if it was a set IO then the recharge would buggily cascade down to attacks that would otherwise accept that set type. But stuff like accuracy which *is* intended to cascade to the pets' powers, that should enhance all the pets powers regardless of what kind of set it came from. I think. Maybe.

Also procs still work that way - a Lady Grey damage proc slotted in a pet will only have a chance to trigger on the pet's powers that are set to accept defense debuff sets (which is why it's great for Soldiers, but not so much for Commando).

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Well, when I went to slot the one IO and grabbed it, none of the slots would highlight as being available. I thought that maybe it's because it couldn't be combined with any of the ones in there so I trashed the existing IO.

I agree that six months is way too long for an inactive leader. I understand the concerns people have about working hard to build something up and then losing it, but when you invite people to be part of the supergroup, it's not just yours anymore. If you want to make sure it's always yours and nobody else could ever be a leader, don't invite anyone.

I could see extending the cutoff time a little, like just over 2 months, but not much more. If it's a decent supergroup, it needs a leader. If that leader was absent for six months, he should forfeit the position of leader. Yes, life can throw you curveballs, but it goes on despite what happens to you, and the supergroup should be able to go on too.

This is the first I'm seeing of this thread.

To the OP..... cross-dressing is not a sexual activity. In of itself, it's not suggestive. Cross-dressers, you may be interested in knowing, are usually straight. The term "cross dressing" is used by straight individuals who enjoy dressing up as the opposite gender. Transvestites can be either straight or gay, but cross-dressing is usually used by the straight person who likes to dress that way. Someone cross-dressers may engage in suggestive behavior or dialog, but that happens with the "straight" characters too, and is inappropriate for this game.

Your concern is that you don't wish for your children to see cross-dressers. Many conservatives believe homosexuality, bisexuality, cross-dressing, transgenders, and other people falling into similar categories are all people that shouldn't be exposed to children. They basically go under the premise that only "normal" heterosexual relations is something that children should be exposed to, and that gay people shouldn't do anything that lets them be identified as gay while they're in the general public. That's discriminatory. Regardless of what you want to teach your children, gay individuals have the same rights you do, and your wish that they hide themselves from your child does not override their rights. If they want to wear rainbow buttons and hold hands in public, or even kiss, to tell them that they shouldn't be allowed to do that because your children are near, but straight people can engage in those actions, is discriminatory.

Gay people exist. Cross-dressers exist. Transsexuals exist. You can keep wanting that these people will stay hidden so your children don't know they exist, but all that's doing is hiding your child from seeing the world for what it is.... a mixture of all different types of people. If your kids grow up never knowing that there are gay people or transsexuals or cross-dressers, they'll just find out when they go out on their own.

Children are capable of understanding many many things. While some people may think that a child cannot understand something like a gay relationship, the reality is that it's often the parent who simply doesn't know how to explain it so that the child could understand.

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Ice Armor, but more specifically Ice Patch and Chilling Embrace, is far more effective at mitigating attacks from all foes in melee range than Cloak of Fear and Oppressive Gloom combined due mostly to magnitude limitations on the latter two powers.


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Brute Cloak of Fear affects Lieutenants, by the way, so I am not sure what you mean by mentioning that and magnitude restrictions.

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I"m not convinced of magnitude differences much either. But the difference between Cloak of Fear and Chilling Embrace is that while Cloak will fear the enemies, the damage aura will continually break that fear causing them to attack (at reduced accuracy) and still build fury. With Chilling Embrace, you're absolutely slowing down how often you are attacked. Add in any Ice attacks and Ice Patch, and you're drastically decreasing it further.

Slotting for range is similar to slotting for endurance. If you teleport further, you travel further for less endurance. Increasing your range by 20% is like reducing its endurance cost by 20%. Because of the way endurance reductions work, you decrease your endurance usage by roughly half of what you slot. It's not precise as you get less bang for your buck as the slotted value gets higher, and a little more bang for the buck if you slot less, but the idea is there.

If I need my slots elsewhere, I just use the one in Teleport. I add an Endurance/Range IO and just use that until I can add another slot. Then I may add another Endurance/Range from a different set unless I really want the set bonus from the first set. If I do want that bonus, either a Range or an Endurance will work well. An Endurance will decrease your endurance cost so that you can probably keep teleporting without stop, a Range will get you there faster. An advantage to endurance is that if you have a stone tank (which needs teleport about as much as any set could need a particular power), endurance will let you teleport around the combat area during combat without running your endurance dry.

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ya that term comes from WoW Thiry_seven, such as vanity pets, or vanity cloths like aggelakis mentioned, the holiday items.

In wow, when you reach the lvl cap, you have to start with 5man groups, then 5man heroics, then a 10man raid, then a 25man heroic raid, then they release a new 10/25 man raid that you have to be geared from the prevois 10/25man raid in order to be worth anything in it.

CoH seems to lack that from what you guys are telling me. Imo that makes for a huge gap in stuff to do at end game, considering 70% of my time on wow now is working on the new raids, gearing myself out to beat the last boss in the raid (raids average from 4 to 14 or so bosses), then working on getting the best items from that raid before the next one is released (typically 2-5 months later)

The other 30% of my time is spent in battlegrounds or arenas playing farely well balanced pvp compared to CoH, but someone already stated PvP was an addon thats what it doesnt mesh well which makes sense.
WoW does go through phases of unbalanced classes but for the most part its decent.

I also spend a small amount of time doing dailies, fishing, farming for gold etc to buy potions/flasks that i need for raids.

At the core of it, CoH is a simple blow stuff up with your super cool powers game, not much indepth.
Still fun though, thats why i reactivated my account, but its just not a game that will ever hold my intrested as long as WoW has.

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COH is definitely the "lite" version of MMORPs. The vast majority of missions just fall into a very few categories, and almost always involve beating mobs. Being the "lite" version isn't bad or good, it's just different. It allows it to be more casual, which makes it easy for players to log on and engage in content quickly.

If you break down what you describe and what CoX is like, they're not that dissimilar. WoW releases new raids a couple times a year. You work your way through that raid and then wait for the next one to be released. CoX releases new content and task forces a couple times a year also. The difference is that you don't need to get gear from the current one to tweak yourself out to be ready for the next one.

The best way to look at end-game content in CoX is that the entire game is end-game content. Everything that is available on the journey to 50 is still available after you get there. The flashback system (Oroborous) lets you go back and play anything that you liked or may have missed. It's very effective, lowering you to the proper level so that the content can still be challenging. Last night I logged on my 50 dark defender and saw they were looking forming the 1st respec task force, so I joined up and was kept busy for an hour. Afterwards I saw an Imperius Task Force forming, so I joined that one. Then I saw someone was working through the Midnighter arc and was level 33 and looking for teammates. I sent him a tell, he exemped me down to level 33, and we ran through that.

There's few fundamental differences between the various levels, if any at all. Playing a level 30 mission isn't much different than playing a level 50 mission. I believe that's true for all the games out there. You may have less powers, but since the content is geared for those levels, difficulty will be similar, so there's no reason to limit yourself to just the 50 content.

I'm bugging it. What annoys me is that I trashed a level 40 common accuracy IO that was in there, bought the Acc/Dam, and bought the salvage for it. I figured I didn't need as much accuracy as it had, so why not trade off a little of the accuracy for damage?

I read other threads about fluffy. Some people have said that if you put in an IO from a set, it only affects the power that would normally take that set. For example.... an accuracy/hold/recharge IO from Neuronic Shutdown would only affect the accuracy and hold for Petrifying Gaze.

But when I expand the power descriptions for the Dark Servant's powers in the Info window, it shows all of the powers benefiting from that extra accuracy. So now I'm a bit confused as to how I should be slotting it. I think I may just drop an accuracy back into it and be done with it.

But it does say that it's supposed to take Recharge Intensive Pets, right? Please tell me that I'm not imagining that. I checked six times.

I have an Expedient Reinforcement: Acc/Dam I want to slot into fluffy. It says it takes Recharge Intensive Pets sets, and I deleted a common IO that was in there to make room for it, but it won't let me place it. Is there a bug?

Well, technically, any character can farm. Some builds will be more productive than others though. I farm on my fire/ice blaster. It's the character I enjoy playing, so when I do decide to farm, he's the one I use.

My blaster is the one I've made it a hobby to see how far he can get tricked out with IOs. I got a lot of set bonuses from regular IOs, and I started adding in some purples to the powers that don't have any sets yet. For me, the goal of the purples is that I wanted to get a bit of regen, recovery, accuracy, and recharge for those times when I exemp down to run some of the low-level content.

I don't see much of a "purple problem" either. They're supposed to be ultra rare. If they were common enough that everybody can just get them at will, it would be the base standard, and then people would be crying for new sets that surpass them.