Battery

Absolutely fantastic! My lvl 50 pretty much lives in the shadow shard and this is great!

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Solo and Team Play

The recent change to boss difficulty has brought out a long simmering question: what does a solo player do in City of Heroes. Currently, some missions are for the “lone wolf” hero, but many are not. With the now sturdy bosses, even the most skilled player has difficulty completing these tasks. Worst of all, some players are surprised by the presence of a boss and defeated almost immediately.

On the one hand, this is a MMP. I believe that some of the best features of the game shine when players join forces with other players. On the other hand, I’ve always believed that part of our game’s strength is the ability for a player to log on for a half hour, have fun, then log off. If a mission requires a team up, players spend a lot of time simply organizing. The quick fun element dissipates.

In the short term:

• We will roll back the Boss changes.
• Team up XP bonuses will be increased.

Let’s not start pointing fingers – “the whiners had their way” or “the game’s too easy, make it harder” – because I think the Boss changes violated a basic principle. Namely: never let a person make an uninformed decision. And right now, people aren’t clear when a mission requires a team up and when it doesn’t. Plus, they have no ability to drop a mission if they don’t feel like doing it. Besides, we’ve introduced our Mission Difficulty Slider to satisfy the demands of those who want something more challenging in the future.

In the mid-term:
• There are two types of missions in City of Heroes. The bread and butter missions are drawn from a generic pool. The vast majority of a player’s experience are devoted to completing these tasks for his Contacts. We will be making it so that a Boss will NEVER show up on the mission for a solo player at the lowest Reputation level (Hard-Boiled, though we’re changing that to Hero). Instead, any named villain will be a Lieutenant. That Lieutenant will have the same name, powers and costume as the Boss; his villain rank will simply be lessened. In this way, solo players won’t miss out on the flavor of the mission’s story. If a team or a player with a Reputation at Tenacious or higher enters that mission, the Lieutenant will become a Boss.
• Contacts give out another series of missions – story arcs. These are linked missions that form a much larger tale. Players normally receive story arcs only after they’ve leveled their Contact up to the highest level. Whenever a named character occurs, he’ll be a Lt. for the solo player at the lowest Reputation level and a Boss for teams or solo players with higher Reputations. Arch Villains, Elite Bosses and Giant Monsters will remain as they are; but, for the early and mid-levels, players will not need to defeat these foes to complete the mission. In the high levels, this is not the case.
• Task Forces and Trials will continue to contain Elite Bosses, ArchVillains and Giant Monsters. There will be no changes here.

In the long term:
• The Mission UI will be improved to designate various elements of mission: timed missions, team up required, etc.
• A system will allow players to drop unwanted missions or do old missions that have been passed over (the infamous “flashback”).
• Only until players can drop missions will we look at the Boss difficulty again.

What’s our goal? Simply put: if a player wants to do something solo, it should be CHOICE. Teaming shouldn’t be required, but rather encouraged. If a player gets a mission with an Arch Villain, he’ll be able to drop it and get another.

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Wow, that's awesome. Thanks!

I love to see some more variety of missions for non-damage dealer ATs like my current ice/storm controller (lvl29). Having to physically remove all of my opponents hit points (either everyone on map or just selected enemies/bosses) seems totally geared towards blaster and scrappers, and it would be nice to see some missions where the emphasis is on control, defense, or both(tanking). The game is already blaster/scrapper centric and giving them a few missions they can't do without teaming, or that a 'support' class can more easily solo, would be another great step towards a level playing field.

Thanks States!

Nice, and thanks.

I noticed that I had to change the file path not only of the bind_load_file statement in game but the txt files reference each other too so they must be changed as well. Seems pretty obvious now, but at the time I didn't see that they needed 'customization'.

Also, I tried camdist 300 instead of 30 and found it pretty hard to see where I was going(though the point about the ghetto fly was well received). That's another area where I imagine I'll need to play and find the best distance.

thanks again