Basilisk
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Posts
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Given all the hand wringing in this thread about Trick Arrow, I'm honestly a bit surprised that no one's mentioned what seems the most obvious change to Disruption Arrow — and it's already in game.
From level 40 on, Longbow Nullifiers get as part of their "Disruption Grenade" a power called "Sonic Concussion," a 30% chance to apply a mag 2 hold in a 5 foot radius. Why not fold that into Disruption Arrow? That would give a means to mitigate incoming alphas, while not being massively over the top in terms of buffing. Yes, it would benefit controllers more, but at a mere 30% chance, it's hardly a guaranteed lockdown, and if it risks becoming OP due to sets or enhancement, then they can simply make the power not accept hold sets, or not accept hold enhancements. -
I dislike glue grenades, but for the most part I think they're a legitimate challenge. Above all else, I just wish the debuff would be shorter so that I'm not stuck sitting around crawling to my next objective for 29 seconds after the group is dead. It's annoying and un-fun and doesn't really add any more challenge to the game other than the challenge involved in not screaming at your character to hurry the *%&^ up. At the very least I'd like to the the effect end when the caster dies.
As for the Flashbang grenades, seriously, *^&( those guys. That's a power that's just plain over-the top in annoyance. -tohit and -defence at a higher amount than a defender using RI for a flat 30 secs? If anything keeps me from playing the Mayhems, it's the ghosts. -
Quote:That's "A Titan Called Joe", though the kid wasn't genetically engineered, he was just some kid gone wrong that was taken from the Zig because Malta figured no one would notice him missing. The arc makes plenty clear, too, that there are dozens of such unfortunates who have gone missing and no one has heard from them again, making you wonder if they were just abandoned to their fates or if Malta has been systematically eliminating their families to keep them quiet.Originally Posted by Miss Chief
I think the one that really got me most of all is part of Crimson's World Wide Red arc (I think). When i found out they'd genetically engineered a child to be the centre of a Zeus Titan and then you have to fight it and the kid inside is screaming out that he can't control it and you have to beat it down, knowing that you're going to kill the child really choked me up, because I have kids of my own. I've only played it a few times because it's about a dozen missions through Crimson's arc but it chokes me up every time as it makes me think about how inhuman Malta are and also makes me think about someone trying to hurt my kids. -
I give high marks to the arc featuring the death of Aaron Walker. They did a really good job of establishing the character as an annoying little prat of a genius and then making you care just enough about him that being unable to help him in Neuron's containment facility hurts just a little bit.
Another one I really like, though it isn't a full arc, is "A Titan Called Joe" from Crimson. It's just a quick three-shot of connected missions, but finding just how low Malta will go to keep their secrets safe, and just how reprehensible they can be is a little bit terrifying, particularly because it shows that they've infiltrated into the Zig's management and can do WHAT they want there without too much fear of repercussions.
I know it gets a lot of flak, but Roy Cooling's arc "Bad People, Good Intentions" struck a chord with me too. It used a lot of MacGuffinry to tell the story, I will admit, but it stands strong on two points for me: 1) That while you are a hero and able to medi-port to safety, the front line PPD are very much exposed and unprotected and they do their jobs in spite of that. And 2) The final fight, where you are faced with Castillo the buffoon, who you take down only to be faced with the big Malta Titan afterwards. Even if you have seen the titans before, it's an impressive sight getting one barrelling down on you on a burning helipad as you're exhausted but still fighting to do right not only by the PPD but also by the other heroes in the upcoming praetorian invasion. -
Quote:This is ultimately my biggest problem with the whole incarnate system. I can see prices like this in a game like WoW. If you want to run "end-game content" you have easily a dozen options. Here, you have three (as of the end of the week). Is there more in the works? Maybe, but that's awfully cold comfort seeing as we've got two options to progress right now.Originally Posted by Bad_Influence
I am also confused as to the idea of every alt who is a level 50 should be doing nothing but grinding trials -which is what gating this stuff behind Trial-only content says to me, in a broad sense. What? We have two trials, about to be three. A new Trial is not exactly popping up every week. Or even every month. Two Trials? Wow.
And yeah, I know more Trials will follow but that's a long time in the future. Till we get that content all of our level 50s are expected to grind those two Trials NOW. I have seen those cutscenes enough! Its like Sisyphus + hill....
I don't dislike the trials. I've just run them more in a few months than I have any of the other TFs in the 7 years I've been playing. At this point I'd just as soon quit my subscription than run another Lambda or BAF.The only reason I'm still playing right now is that I enjoy the 25-35 range enough to keep playing alts through it, but even then it's that much harder now getting TFs together that are not WTFs or Incarnate trials. You can do it, sure, but there's much less interest.
As far as I'm concerned, the Incarnate system should have been a full paid expansion like/in place of GR. Then they could have put the effort in to releasing the thing in complete instead of trickling the trials out one at a time , and not really satisfying anyone. -
I'm working on a Psi/Fire right now.He's only up to 28, but he's been a lot of fun so far. The biggest problem that I'm running into at this point are the psi-resistant mobs. BP are probably the worst offenders for me at the moment, since they're fairly prevalent in the 20s and my blasts are like shooting spitballs at the zombies.
The nice thing is the solid damage provided by /fire, for me. Combustion and Fire Sword Circle together give you decent AoE damage to make up for the fact that psi blast is fairly heavily ST focused, and having Consume is always nice, even if I haven't found it too necessary so far. The combination of fire and lethal damage in the secondary also helps deal with enemies who are heavily resistant to your damage type.
So far, I'm enjoying it. I do worry about the higher levels, however, since I know that the big psi resists come in hard later on with carnies and every other group with stupid robots. However, it plays very differently to any of my other blasters and it's a nice change of pace to have to stop and think about what I am doing. Also, the ability to tear apart those *$&#ing CoT spectrals like tissue paper is worth its weight in gold. -
The devs did attempt a little bit of this in the original design of the game. Targeting drone from Blaster /devices, for example, adds damage to Sniper Rifle from AR. Prior to its change, Fiery Embrace gave a larger boost to fire damage than to other damage types and for twice as long.
By and large, the response from the players has been lukewarm at best, with a lot of people pointing out that this feels like the game is railroading them into certain power choices or power sets. In a game so focused towards options, my feeling is that it's best to simply design the sets to stand alone. Perhaps a particular combination will stand out, like DM/Shield, and that's just a quirk of the mechanics, but having odd combinations as forerunners seems to me to be less of a problem than having the game designed to shepherd you to certain choices, especially since players might not like the sets they're being directed to.
For example, Inv/SS tanks... I love Invulnerability as a power set. It's tough as heck and versatile. SS, on the other hand, I don't really like because the rage crashes annoy the heck out of me. I would not be happy if, for instance, my Inv/BA tank was not getting the same bonuses that an Inv/SS tank was, particularly since there's not really a "thematic" partner for BA or the other weapon sets. -
Given that it's likely this will be the kind of option that people will toggle on or off and leave for the rest of their play time, I don't know if that's going to be too big a problem. You can go once, set everything and that's that. In general, I don't expect the majority of people will have to deal with him more than once or twice in a character's life, and if TonyV is right about it being much easier to set it in an NPC's dialogue than in the options then I expect doing it quickly is regarded as being better than doing it "conveniently."
Then again, I expect that because I said this, there will be hundreds of people coming out of the woodwork with examples as to why they would need to change things on the fly. I do think that the best solution is probably making these game-changing contacts phonable in their own tab in the contact list, but in my mind it would be best to get the tech in fast to come with the changes to buffs and then adding the "convenience" factors when they can be worked on. -
My feeling about the entirety of redside is that it's a marvelous example of the devs' reach exceeding their grasp. It feels very much like in the planning stages, there was some intent to get a whole lot of lore in there with all these new villain groups and special arcs to make it much different from blueside. Unfortunately, as things progressed they realized they didn't have nearly enough time to get all the new mobs and stories put together, so they threw in what they had, focused on a few key groups to give a complete level range to (Longbow and Arachnos) and smoothed things over to fit.
As a result, you see a lot of the "new" groups at the lower levels — Goldbrickers, Luddites, Legacy Chain, etc. but once the created mobs for these are outlevelled in the 30s, nothing is there to replace them. As a result, the majority of the high 30s is filled with Longbow, Arachnos and CoT and sprinkled with a few holdovers from CoH. -
I'd love to see a CoH-style fighter like Marvel vs. Capcom. Make your custom fighters, choose their powersets, then use them to beat the tar out of one another!
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Quote:Part of the advantage human guerrilla fighters have over gorilla guerrillas have, however, is the fact that they can "naturalize" with the population. It's possible for revolutionaries to strike from the cover of the crowd because they can then blend in with that crowd. It's never possible to know who is a combatant and who is a civilian. They can hide in plain sight, so to speak.Originally Posted by Ironik
I would just tell you to take a look at any insurgent battle ever fought. From the Revolutionary War to modern day, guerrilla warfare (no pun intended) is incredibly hard to counter. Imagine if those same guerrillas had mecha combat suits that increased their speed and strength 5-fold. It doesn't take that many of them to make one helluva mess.
A "Rise of the apes" scenario would not have this advantage, since the population of great apes in and around the San Francisco area is limited to less than a hundred in zoos and universities and the like, and the likelihood of an innocent ape just walking down the Embarcadero is pretty minimal. Therefore if you were taking fire from somewhere and then you see an ape walking away and acting casual, you're probably clear to engage. It's not like they're the Viet Cong. They don't look like the local populace.
I'm not saying "gorilla tactics" would be useless, I just think that would be a non-insignificant disadvantage they'd have to overcome. -
Quote:I'm pretty sure that if you look up the term "je_saist" on Urban Dictionary, that's the exact definition you receive.Originally Posted by Cold_X
...a jerk who has nothing better to do but troll forums.
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This happens so often it almost makes me wonder if there's not, in fact, a problem with the temp powers being rewarded. At least one of the Lambdas I've run was with a team of folks who were all well experienced with the trial and yet in spite of collecting all 10 Acids in the base, we still had to go through and get one or two spares from the courtyard after a brief period of "OK, who has the last one?" It's not impossible that someone wasn't paying attention or was intentionally being a dick, but it seems unlikely in this case.
Either way, if we had some kind of indication that someone has the temp power, it would make matters that much easier to sort out. If you got all ten in the base and there are still 2 doors open and no one's glowing, then hey, there might be a problem to fix. -
Quote:I'm not sure which Trial you've been running, but over the weekend I focused on the Lambda TF, and I averaged between 10-15 threads per run, plus 2-4 Astral Merits which break down into 4 threads apiece (since these have no other function as of yet, they might as well be counted.) This doesn't count trials that crash out or fail early on from similar problems. Not all of these trials were successful either.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
I'm averaging four threads per trial run. For threads to drop five times faster, even if I were to assume for discussion purposes that trials are twice as fasst as ITFs I would have to average less than two per ITF. That's far, far, far less than my average. So I'm disinclined to believe that the ratio is five to one in favor of threads over shards.
Now, assuming a low-end scenario of 10 threads and 2 astrals, at 5 threads to one shard, that's 3 shards and change. That's a REALLY poor run on an ITF, but not impossible. At two to one, that's 9 shards, which is a fairly decent run. Best case (15 threads, 4 astrals) at 5 to 1 would be 6 shards, which is a below-average ITF and at 2 to 1 it's 15 shards, which is an exceptional run. This doesn't even get into the fact that 2 Lambda runs can
be done in the same time frame as one ITF.
I don't think a 5 to 1 scale is quite right in terms of shard vs. thread drops, but I also don't think it's very far off that, at least in my own experience. -
Quote:I'm agreed with this. This is exacerbated by the fact that in my 7 years of playing CoH, I have done exactly one Mothership raid (about a year and a half ago) and one Hamidon raid (about a week ago). The ultra-sized team thing is not my bag. It's not how I care to spend my time and now I'm presented with a) accept that level 50 and alpha-slotting is as far as I will be able to take my characters, or b) participate in a system I don't like in order to be able to keep up with the Joneses.Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
Thats when variety ends, and the journey suddenly starts to stagnate. Even the Alpha slot is alright; theres a variety of different TF/SFs that can be done for parts a variety of different ways, and even standard missions drop shards.
These slots? Two things only. And from the last I looked, the shard conversion rate and threads and such was atrocious, along with an honest to frag inf cost. Which is just...no. Just no. Thats not a journey, thats a grind. Theres a difference.
Neither of these options really appeal to me. I would like some reasonable alternatives to advance through the system, be it a few task forces or whatever. I have heard the argument that "if you don't like the post-50 content, then you can continue playing the way you have been without it." And I probably will, assuming I don't cancel my account (elaboration on this to come). However, I know that for the first few months after I20 is released, attempting to gather a team to play non-raid content which is not the new TFs will be a losing venture. So, soloing, raiding, or running the new TFs over and over again will be the choices presented to me.
So, I'm considering cancelling my account. It's not based off of malice. I'm not sitting at the keyboard going "OMG THEY'RE ADDING RAIDS AND NOW I WILL QUIT." But if the options to proceed are all things that I have no interest in, then why would I continue to keep paying to play if I don't like it? I wouldn't buy a copy of Madden from my local EB Games if I don't like football, after all. I'll give I20 a shot once it hits live, and who knows, it may blow my mind, but I doubt it. -
I think the biggest problem with the PvP system in CoH is that, to paraphrase Yahtzee in his Dead Rising 2 review, "the learning curve is so steep it has a ****ing overhang." By the time you've gotten to a place where you're able to be competitive in the very first zone, you've had 30 levels (25 to be at the top of the zone's level range, +5 because you keep your powers when exemped) to get used to how your powers work. You step into Bloody Bay and suddenly you have 17 powers you need to re-learn how to use because of the different rules.
Even then there's no guarantee you'll be in a position to actually do something. Control powers are generally regarded as worthless because they simply don't last long enough. I know pre-I13 it was all too possible to hold an enemy to kill them by the death of 1000 cuts, but surely there's some median between City of Statues and "Mez? what's that?" that can be reached so that the control ATs can actually control.
In this game, the most fun I've had PvPing was during the CoV beta. Hundreds of people in-zone, and it was just a chaotic mess. I died about a hundred times in the space of an hour, and I suspect I killed about as many enemies. It's sad to know that is probably never going to happen again, if only because of the fact that even if PvP gets re-revamped into the crowning jewel of PvP perfection in such a way as to make any other PvP system look like playing with a hoop and stick, that the playerbase of CoH is so gun-shy about PvP that they'll avoid it anyways. -
Quote:To be fair, soloing AVs isn't hard. For the most part, they're just big bags of HP and regen. If you can mitigate or outdamage that, and you can tolerate the incoming damage, then all you really need to do is stand there and wail on them.Originally Posted by Tenzhi
Some people insist that soloing AVs isn't hard, too.
Making a build that can do that, that's the (sometimes) hard part. -
Introducing: Rikti: Gold!
Found on the very first mothership raid, Rikti: Gold features the very best in Rikti Pop culture hits from the '60s, '70s, 80's and '90s. Rikti: Gold features classic songs in a way you've never heard them before! Over fifteen hours of Rikti hits, like:
- Ascension, Descension: Subject: Zig'Strd'st, Additional Subjects: Spiders: Origin: Mars. By Dav'Bwi
- Acceptable action: Fighting, Time: Saturday, Modifier: Night, by L'tnjan
- Subject: Dude, Appearance: Lady, by Stv'Yler and Profession:Smith, Material: Aero
- Subject: Self, Action: Acquire, Position: On, by A'ha
- Odour: Spirit, Origin: Teen, by N'v'ana
- Imperative: Walk, Location: Wild Side, by Lu'Reed
- Additional: Subject: Brick, Insertion: Location: Wall, by P'nk'flyd
- Self: Status: Dazed, Additional Status: Confused, by L'dZep'lin
- Expression: Gratitude, Reason: Loving: Subject: Me, by B'njv'i
- Denial: Action: Ask, Subject: More, by Ed'wn'Mcin
- Precognition: Loved: Subject: You, Time: Prior: Meeting: Subject: You, by Garden, Status: Savage
- Emphatic Plea: Forgive: Subject: Me, by Bry'nd'ams
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In theory, NCSoft has a department for this sort of thing.
Far as I can tell, they are doing almost nothing to promote their game. Why should I put any more effort into this than the people who are being paid to? I've been around this game for near on 7 years now. I've had a good run. If NC's nonexistent marketing lets it fade into obscurity so it can die with a whimper, then so be it. I've done my part to support this game, both in recruitment and in subscriptions. I wish you the best of luck, but at this point, I'm too damn cynical to care. -
I'll admit, I had forgotten about resetting the mission, not being able to abandon it threw me for a loop.
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So I started my Incarnate missions on my Earth controller this afternoon, and I did the first mission with no difficulties (unsurprisingly). I got to the second mission, however, and realized that everything was in huge spawns and about +3 to me. Last time I played the character, I must've been on a steamrolling team.
"No biggie," I says to myself, "I'll just set down the difficulty and start again."
So I go talk to the Hero Corps jerk, fix my difficulty, and then run up to Ramiel. I get "Ask about this Contact" and "Ask about the store."
Seriously? I have to log out and log back in to change my difficulty? Especially on characters that in large part have been ignored for up to a year?
So, all I'd like is the option to abandon the mission. I don't care if that means I have to talk to Statesman again when I take it, I would rather the 5 minute runaround dealing with that than the logout process, especially since when I go to the "Switch character" option, it booted me to the log in, and I wasn't able to reconnect to the dbserver until I restarted.
Please note I am talking about abandoning the mission, not autocompleting it, since I know there's going to be someone who will get the two confused and rag on me about the EB fight or something. I just want to be able to drop it so I can pick it up again. -
Most people are taking the English definition of the word "grand," but bear in mind that an awful lot of the Rogue Isles' names come from French. In French, you have "grand" which is large, and "ville" for city. So, Grandville is just French for "big city." I suppose it's the largest city area in the Isles, but it's still a bit of a misnomer in comparison to Paragon.
The thing I have to wonder is if it's an indirect reference to another comic city named for being a big city: Metropolis, home of Superman. Or if it's just its own big city and our devs are painfully bland in their naming. -
Quote:Sorry Arcana, I have to disagree with you here. The primary reason being that the main complaint is less that (in my case, at least) I have to do an arc to access the incarnate content and more that I have to do this arc to access incarnate content. A player who wishes to go from level 20 to level 30 does not need to complete the "Mysterious General Z" arc if s/he doesn't like it. There are alternatives: other mission arcs, AE arcs, Task Forces, teaming up and doing a friend's higher or lower level arcs, etc.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
If you do not want to participate, that is your prerogative. However, you will be in the same position as people who do not want to level are in the regular game but want to participate fully in the higher level content. Which is to say, the devs are unlikely to change the entire premise of the end game system just for you.
As has been mentioned several times, Montague Castanella is in the same boat where access to Cimerora is gated behind his arc, and as compelling as it was the first time, the reaction that I hear about Monty's arc tends towards "Crap, I have to do this again?" Especially when you accidentally forget that the character you wanted to bring for an ITF hasn't actually done that arc yet.
If there were several options behind the unlock, this wouldn't be a problem. The arc is new and fresh now, and having just played it it's ok, but by the time I have to run my 10th character through it the arc becomes a meaningless chore. Even one other option for unlocking it, like the previous merit-buy or a TF would be nicer than always being channeled down the same path. Naturally, it comes down to developer time available, and I guess they've got better things to do than to add a couple of arcs to accomplish the same thing, but I still feel that the majority of this thread is being unnecessarily harsh on the OP. (Though that probably has something to do with the confrontational tone the OP has had from the start) -
I have to admit, I like the new animations too. They're mostly direct and to the point, which suits many of my characters. Not crazy about the snipe one, though. Charge with both hands, fire with one just looks strange to me.
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Quote:Talk like this makes me want to hurt you. Bad.Originally Posted by GuyPerfect
This shiny's got my brain all up in beans. The city folk know Thinkin' Dude from before when they busted his britches and kicked him in a cage. A cage the Nighty-Night Men rolled up right in front of everyone's peepers! You want to study up on this Dream Land and learn about Thinkin' Dude's chompers, you just gotta give your buddy Monty a ring-a-ling and make him flap his trap, know what I'm sayin'?