Biowraith

Others may well have covered all this, but I'm too lazy to read their posts just now

So, my thoughts on your criticisms:

XP debt: Oddly enough, most of us consider the XP debt to be such a light penalty that it's barely even noticeable. Especially when combined with patrol xp. Now if you went back to the game's release, the debt was pretty noticeable and could put a real damper on solo efforts (or bad team efforts), but these days it's trivial. I'm not sure what to say other than that really, just seems we have very different perceptions of it.

Although if you're having trouble with bosses I just wanted to check: are you making use of inspirations to fight them? Especially purples (+def) and reds (+damage). Pop 3-4 purples and you should be fairly safe, easily long enough to stack up your mezzes on them. Use up/delete/combine less useful ones during the easier fights to ensure that you have a few purples and reds by the time you hit the boss (may want a few greens/blues in there too if the fight is likely to take a while, though I appreciate the inspiration tray isn't that big at low levels).


Miss rate: well, we all have times (especially at low unenhanced levels) when the miss rate seems excessive and it seems the rng is out to get us. And that missing can be hard to adjust to if you're used to MMOs where everything is auto-hit. The only real suggestion I have here is ensure you have at least 30% (ideally a bit more) accuracy slotted in each power as soon as that's plausible. At low level that'd be 2 Dual Origin enhancements. Later on one Single Origin enhancement would probably do you for even level content, but many would opt for two to make sure they're still hitting against higher level enemies.

Hospital runs: Eh, with travel powers I don't find these half as annoying as the ghost runs most fantasy MMOs I've played subject me to. There's also awaken inspirations if you can do a bit of last minute manoeuvring to land your death somewhere it'll be safe to recover. But if you make use of inspirations and don't have the difficulty settings cranked up too high, this shouldn't be a particularly common occurrence - a Mind Controller should have no issues with normal even level spawned-for-one-person spawns, and as I say, Inspirations take care of boss fights most of the time.

UI: Won't argue too much here, though I suspect revamping the UI to the levels of customisation some MMOs offer may be an issue on such an old game.

Graphics: Haven't really noticed any of those issues. Well, except maybe the darkness - that's because the Halloween event is currently running, so it's permanent nighttime just now. Or if you're running villains, the dingy gloomy scenery there is a common complaint. But inside missions etc, never had any real brightness problems. For the other issues, possibly there may be a change of settings that would help with some of that, but it may just be differing tolerances for a dated graphics engine.

LFG: Both are issues that I think most (bar the more, ah, enthusiastic fans) will agree with you on. The estimated time includes the time it takes pre-formed groups that enter the queue - because their group is already at the maximum size when they queue they get into the instance immediately with close to zero wait time, and that throws off the average (especially since most people are preforming groups rather than just queuing and waiting). And many people have complained about being unable to run missions etc while queued - it's one reason people are pre-forming their groups instead of using the queue

Group Combat: Well, first of all this game does usually have a less rigid group mechanic than most MMOs. There are tanks and others designed to manage aggro etc, but it's not quite as vital that they hold on to every target's attention. Similarly there's plenty of healing powers, but they're just one small part of the mitigation - buffs and debuffs (and mez) are at least as important and many would argue even more so (to the point you don't necessarily need any "healers" to do well) - they have *way* more impact than in most MMOs. There's *far* less emphasis on the holy trinity, and when played well pretty much any combination of characters can do well (though from a minmax standpoint, some will still do better than others). Essentially, every role can help, but none are outright required.

Also if your group experience is mostly based on the Death from Below trial (via LFG) then yeah, you'll find people tend to be a bit more care free and chaotic in their approach - it's a pretty easy trial, based around low level content (despite being able to run it at any level), and most characters won't have many of their tools available yet (so e.g. a Tank isn't really that much more survivable than anyone else, and may well not have taken their aggro mangement powers yet in favour of powers that'll help them solo).

There tends to be a bit more in the way of group roles later on as enemies get tougher and everyone starts filling out their builds, but realise it doesn't really ever get to the levels of coordination and narrow roles that other MMOs require. Enemies will start to get some nasty abilities, but there's not many in the way of scripted fights where you learn it like a platform game boss and such, it remains a straight hack'n'slash for 95% of the game. The only real exception is the Incarnate content at endgame, though I'm not sure how it compares with other MMOs. Generally though, CoH's a fairly straightforward game when it comes to the actual gameplay (the complexity is more in the build options and synergies) and allows for a more freeform approach to group roles - and really, most of us prefer it that way (for me the grouping here is one of the big reasons I play this instead of any of the competition).

Any points I didn't address is because I felt they were more pet peeves, and ones I've never had any issue with personally, so I don't have any real input to offer.


Anyway, I hope you find some or all of these issues ease as you play and learn the game, and that you come to enjoy it as much as most of us. That said, just as WoW doesn't appeal in the slightest to many CoH players, it may well be that this game just isn't for you - that's ok if so.

Just wanted to say, if I'm running a TF or trial I'm unfamiliar with, I always say so at the start (something to the effect of "btw, I've not run this before so let me know if there's anything important I need to know"). I've never, not once, had someone give me a hard time for doing so, not even jokingly. That's on Victory, Virtue, and Freedom, and exclusively on PuGs (I only really have one friend that logs on with any regularity, so I don't have the luxury of hand picking my teams/leagues, and nobody's hand-picking me for theirs). I've also never seen anyone else get any grief for doing that.

Hell, even in other MMOs where attitudes tend to be a lot more aggressive than here, I've not had a problem when saying up front that, "I'm new to this, what's the drill?"

People, in general, don't have a problem with newbies who are making an effort to learn and improve. Now, people who don't speak up at the start and then cause disaster through their inexperience, sometimes that brings them some flak (though in CoH I find even that to be fairly rare, unless it was something mind-bogglingly stupid or a masters badge attempt or something). There often is some hostility to the clueless if they're not making any effort to learn and improve and mess up as a result. And yeah, there's the occasional leader who's just a <insult of choice>, but they tend to be abrasive and obnoxious to everyone, not just the ones who're struggling/slacking.


So if you're reading this and are someone who's afraid to speak up when the leader asks if anyone is new to whatever trial you're on - don't be. Very few people will think less of you for it, and most will appreciate that you're giving them advance warning and be glad to bring you up to speed. At least, that's been my experience.

If you're not at all interested in incarnates and have reached a high tier in the rewards system, then it may well be cheaper to drop to premium (possibly 100% free, depending how much you're willing to go without). I've considered doing that myself.

If that's the case, it sounds like a good thing rather than something to criticise.

It's not like those who maintain a subscription are being conned into doing so - the options available are relatively clear and we can all make our choice accordingly.

I'm now making a mental note to avoid Protector.


OP: you've left that very open ended so hard to give specific suggestions, but sounds like you want a Scrapper, Stalker, or Brute.

Basically what Jibikao said.

I usually devote 4 slots to accuracy and damage (and some endurance - Lich doesn't need it, but it's just my standard pet slotting), then one slot for the Cloud Senses proc, and the last slot for tohit debuff.

You could likely use HOs to reduce that to 3 slots for acc/dam allowing you two for tohit debuff, which with two generic level 50 IOs would bring you close to AD cap (there are some who'd give higher priority to the tohit debuff than the damage, but I'm running it with /Dark so have -tohit in spades already).

I'm generally ok with the incarnate trials: I enjoy BAF & Lambda, find Keyes to be a bit of a hassle (I think it could use one or two fewer gimmicks in the final fight, and only one reactor console powerup stage - replace the other two with something, anything else), and find Underground to be ok but a bit too long - could use a little less padding/filler. I haven't found most of the points listed to be an issue, personally (though I can see why they'd bother others).

That said, I'd definitely have greatly preferred it if the trials were designed for an 8 man team (maybe one or two for 16). Once it ramps up to 16-24 I find that it's much harder to get everyone on the same page (a lot just plain don't read league chat) which on some trials can result in a fail even if everyone else is doing what they're meant to - and that's really frustrating both for the ones doing what they're meant to, and the ones that aren't sure what they're doing and may be failing it for the rest. Also it makes me feel less like I'm contributing, that I'm playing a hero, and more like I'm just a small, fairly redundant cog, in a large and messy machine. There's a mass of gfx, with a bag of hitpoints in there somewhere, and maybe I'm helping or maybe I could just roll my face across the keyboard and we'd still be just as successful.

Powers I wouldn't ever skip for a Crab:
Combat Training: Defensive
Tactical Training: Maneuvers (seriously, take this asap)
Mental Training
Crab Spider Armor Upgrade (do not take Wolf Spider Armor unless you have a very specific IO purpose for it - it's seriously redundant otherwise)
Fortification
Venom Grenade

Powers I'd highly recommend, but could understand skipping for a particular build:
Tactical Training: Assault
Tactical Training: Leadership
Serum


The pets are also well worth a look, particularly to boost single target dps on individual hard targets if you want to solo.

And the Fighting pool for Tough and Weave can do a lot to improve your (already fairly high) survivability. Good for soloing on higher difficulties.

Hasten is desirable on most of the builds in the game; for a Crab this is especially true if you've gone with Serum and both pets.

You can also look at doubling up the Tactical Trainings with power pool Leadership (but always go for the Tactical Trainings first - they have half the endurance cost, and in the case of Maneuvers have quadruple the bonus), though be careful about endurance drain there (personally I tend to double Assault and just stick with the native TT: Maneuvers & Leadership).

I've deliberately not commented on attacks as that depends on your focus, whether you want to use the gun or not, PPP choices, etc.

You can view the pets' attacks in-game by checking the detailed info for each pet power (for their base attacks) and the info for the upgrade powers (for the attacks those add). Or you can get listings over at City of Data (though it lists one or two that they don't actually get, possibly remnants of powers that were scrapped).

No idea about the AI though.

I don't have any insight to the topic itself, but I do have a thread from further down the page that you may find helpful: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=275305

Oh, within CoH itself I haven't had any major performance drops recently - nothing that'd prompt me to check /netgraph, anyway i.e. no delayed power activations, rubber banding, or anything like that.

edit: although today, I'm finding a bunch of sites are unreachable (e.g. wikipedia) for me, but apparently aren't down (according to http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com)

I'm also on Virgin (Scotland). I tried running a bunch of www.speedtest.net's and I guess I got similar results - within the EU download speeds were fairly consistently within 80-100% of maximum, and outside that it degrades a fair bit. Although I did still get EU level performance on some Russian servers. East Coast US was quite variable, anywhere from 25% to 70%. West Coast was anywhere from 5% to 25%. The worst one I tried was Seoul which came in at 0.8%.

But none of that seems particularly out of the ordinary to me. I've always noted a drop in performance between East and West coast servers (when downloading files, I'll pick East over West every time), and I've always found performance to be highly variable depending on the servers I was connecting to within a given region. I actually only get 80% of max download speed on the Aberdeen server vs 100% to e.g. Paris, despite being in Scotland myself - so I'd not be at all surprised by even bigger differences the further away I get.

I'm not a network engineer either, so I may be talking nonsense, but I'm fairly sure the further away the server is, the more 'hops' there will be to reach it, and so the more places where slowdown can occur (crappy servers, high traffic, technical issues) - all of which will be outside your ISP's control. Your ISP will get you out onto the interwebs, but after that it's a mish-mash of other organisations' hardware you're relying on, so if you're getting good performance within the EU and the problems only start beyond that, it's not likely to be an issue with your ISP.

And your Ping will definitely increase between East and West coast US (probably about double, maybe triple) - Ping is basically a measure of travel time, so more distance = more time.


(this isn't to say there's not a problem somewhere out there that's getting between you and wherever you're connecting to, giving worse performance than usual, but most of what you've posted sounds normal to me)

I'd love to run a team of 8 /Storm MMs, it'd be glorious.

To be honest, any of them can fulfil those criteria.

But my personal favourite is Crab Spider.

They're probably the most survivable: relatively easily soft-capped defense, which all SoAs get, but also decent resists to everything but psionic, and a Dull Pain clone. They're strong at AoE, which is good for the large mobs aspect, and besides a knockback hole have mez protection somewhere between scrappers and tanks.

Their main weakness is single target damage, but bring out their pets (3 Spiderlings + 2 Disruptors) and they'll tear down hard targets pretty well too.

I've got one of each to 50 (well, except Huntsman, but I'm working on one of those) and they're all very capable though. Whatever you pick should do the job.

edit: as for what each has to offer, very generally:
Crabs - AoE, high survivability, the most pets. Feels the most tank-mage to me.
Banes - strong single target (comparatively weak aoe - fast recharging, but long animation times for lowish damage), mostly stalkerish gameplay but with extra buff/debuff, option of some pets.
Fortunata - most controllerish choice with numerous mezzes, decent ranged damage, moderate AoE with crashless mini-nuke. Kinda feels like a controllery psi blaster with more survivability, I guess.
Night Widow - Feels very much like a scrapper to me, with a touch of stalker - good single target, ok AoE - but with the added team buffs.

They all get good base defense, and are relatively easy to softcap via pool powers & IO set bonuses, and they all get mez protection of some degree. With just SOs, Crabs and Banes are higher defense vs range, while Fortunata & Night Widow are higher vs melee.

re: Spiderling IOs - unless it's changed recently, Crab Spiderlings cannot slot the Achilles set. It's the PPP versions that other ATs get that can do that. Soulbound should be fine though.

And personally I've had the melee attacks on my Crab since they launched. I just didn't go *pure* melee, for various reasons - I liked the aesthetic of my hulking monstrosity of a Crab charging in to eviscerate things, but I still included Channelgun for fast cycling single target ranged, all the AoEs (because survivable AoEing is, imo, what Crab is all about), the pets for hard targets (not so good against groups), and fighting pool for extra survivability (replacing some patron pool AoE which had ultimately proved redundant - and Tough/Weave let me fight bigger/harder spawns than Arctic/Bile ever did). Obviously team buffs too, cos that's also what VEATs are all about. They're all about a few things

Attitudes certainly haven't changed such that melee is considered the way to go, not even close (nor should they, it's a viable option, but it's really not the Crab's strong point). But I do think they may have softened somewhat from the "oh my god why would anyone ever take melee attacks on a Crab?!" that was initially prevalent.

I'm guessing the blind global friend invites are to get around people setting their emails to only accepting from global friends. I also got a blind global friend invite (as did half the people I was teamed with at the time - we were all asking if it was one of us) and the next day I logged on to find an RMT email from them.