Dollymistress

You gotta laugh at the large TR advertisement directly below the article about how the future of CoX will be great.

But seriously, just waiting for more details. Like - maybe we can move a little more away from the intensely secretive planning of the past and be a lot more open to suggestions for future content?

BaB has done a FANTASTIC job in turning around a lot of the hate generated by lack of communication or responsiveness from Cryptic in the past. More of this would be awesome.

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There's a distinct lack of DOOM here.

I find that odd, like everyone's walking down the railroad tracks whistling a merry tune...not hearing the "CHOO CHOO" in the distance, getting louder and louder..."

Business change hands in two situations:

First, cos they are new and extremely, unexpectedly successful and a big company snaps them up.

Second, because the end of the business' lifetime is on the horizin and the original owners want to cut and run so they can pursue better things. The new owner then maintains the products until they naturally wind down.

I don't see how anyone could think the first scenario is active here. The kiss of death for an MMO is the moment when people are no longer required to pay a subscription. This isn't *quite* what we have here, but the "opening up both sides to everyone" smacks a little of that idea.

I'll keep an open mind and see what happens, but I'm worried(tm).

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You'd have a point, except that NCSoft set up an entire new studio just for this game. If this game were on the decline, I somehow doubt that a big multinational company such as NCSoft would set up a new studio for a fading enterprise.

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Germany set up an entire new government HQ (i.e. undergound bunker) in 1945...



But I'll stop being DOOMish now cos really the headline is:

"SHOCK! CoX under new management! What does this mean?! We have no idea..."

In one way, this COULD be a real positive turning point. For me, the past couple of issues have felt like winding down the franchise, with recycled content and increased depth rather than new breadth to the game. However, this might have just been because everyone knew this change was on the way and didn't want to do anything drastic until after it happened. Thus, the change could very well be a return to great strides of changes and optimistic development.

If you want to determine the "smoothness" of this change, keep an eye out in-game for subtle insults against Statesman.

Can we have the CoP and villain Epic ATs now?

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I played Tabula Rasa in the closed beta that was offered through FilePlanet. I would SO not pay to play that game.


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I tried that out too. I had a problem with it not letting me use a game controller, and more generally I think games that immediately restrict their players to a specialist class (i.e. soldier) are doomed to a short lifespan.

Superhero is a broad, diverse group that can be adapted to whatever the player desires.

Receiving the TR updates filled with language like "let's go soldiers! on your feet marines! attennnnnnSHUN!" just made me cringe and drift off. I didn't wanna be a soldier

There's a distinct lack of DOOM here.

I find that odd, like everyone's walking down the railroad tracks whistling a merry tune...not hearing the "CHOO CHOO" in the distance, getting louder and louder..."

Business change hands in two situations:

First, cos they are new and extremely, unexpectedly successful and a big company snaps them up.

Second, because the end of the business' lifetime is on the horizin and the original owners want to cut and run so they can pursue better things. The new owner then maintains the products until they naturally wind down.

I don't see how anyone could think the first scenario is active here. The kiss of death for an MMO is the moment when people are no longer required to pay a subscription. This isn't *quite* what we have here, but the "opening up both sides to everyone" smacks a little of that idea.

I'll keep an open mind and see what happens, but I'm worried(tm).

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Just to head this off at the pass, there is no Anniversary badge for CoV 2 years... we want to get to a point where we only celebrate ONE anniversary a year, like normal folks.

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We do that in my family too. We only celebrate my birthday and not my younger brother's, cos like TWO anniversarys would just be crazy

Did you /bug it?

Will it be addressed in the next patch?

Can we get a badge if we rat out our fellow players?

"Informer" - you no say daddy me snow me Ill go blame,
A licky boom boom down.

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"Heroes and Villains also use the Ouroboros System to return to story arcs that they may have missed

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That they MAY have missed.

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Please tell me that this does not disqualify her from using flashbacks and collecting the new badges?

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Why should it? Flashback doesn't limit you to those missions that you DID miss. It allows you to do old missions, including ones that you MAY HAVE missed.

And here's the clincher:

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and replay hundreds of missions from earlier in the game

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You can't replay a mission unless you've already played it.

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I knews I could count on Sadako

Okay so this system is going to work a bit like an advanced difficulty setting I think. Like somthing from the old Goldeneye game or Forbidden Siren. You can go back, make the missions harder, and get new badges for winning under more difficult conditions?

LOL how much were you guys paid to gush so much about this.

Ultra Rare Inventions - oh joy, just want we needed /sarcasm
New Invention types - yay!
Customised Weapons - Going to skew people to certain sets, other will feel left out.
New powersets - yay!
Flashbacks - My one huge problem with this issue. First, now everyone can do everything, which cheapens the fact that some peeps worked hard the first time around, and defeats the point that each alt takes a different path to 50, picking and choosing contacts.

However, BY FAR the most important worry for me is this:

"Heroes and Villains also use the Ouroboros System to return to story arcs that they may have missed and replay hundreds of missions from earlier in the game. Players will even get to set mission parameters for these missions to earn special badges."

My main/badge character has completed every mission for every contact she was ever offered. She has precisely zero non-full contact bars.

Please tell me that this does not disqualify her from using flashbacks and collecting the new badges?

Oh and Manti/Lord Recluse could easily just have been taking a cigarette break in RV when the changes happened, sparing them.

Celebrations?! In the ROGUE ISLANDS???!!!

NOBODY celebrates in my town! Someone is gonna PAY! *loads shotgun*

Aeon saved that bald guy. He's involved in this.

I was fine with this thing until the latest article. Now I'm up for smacking someone hard with a hail of gunfire because Ghost Widow has most likely been wiped from existence by the changes.

An entire new faction, neither Hero nor Villain?

Epic ATs?

Didn't we cover all this timeline business with RV and the villains Destined One arc?

So, neither the Outbreak success or Breakout escape happened.

Both CoH and CoV were foiled in their infancy. All level 1 Heroes and Villains failed their tutorials, and never went on to become powerful characters.

All Contacts were killed fighting the ensuing plague. Although Lord Recluse is mentioned - confirming that States/Recluse's discovering the Well of the Furies did still occur and created the pre-Rikti invasion Hero population - no second generation of Heroes or Villains was born to replenish the fallen ranks.

A paradox has occured, symbolised by the new Issue 11 wallpaper. Somehow, someone has travelled back in time and ensured that CoH and CoV never happen, and this person's action relied on the very fact that those things did happen, generating an infinate loop.

Is it something we did? Did defeating Nemesis or the Rikti in Issue 10 create the paradox? Was the Rikti invasion essential to our past? Did it even happen in the new timeline?

Issue 10 brought the game full circle. It began with an alien invasion, and ended with one. The Rikti-Human war was concluded, finishing the central storyline of the CoX universe.

Where else is there to go now, but to muddle that storyline in a "meta" story? What else is there to do, but find an interesting way to bring the game to a close...

I don't think this is the end. But it might be the beginning of the end. Whatever has happened, our next adventure will involve travelling back in the past to right the damage that has obviously been done, while maybe struggling in a new timeline where none of us are supposed to exist.

Sounds like fun!

I loved this issue. It's kewl!

If you can see the AV, you are already dead.

Miracle only drops up to level 40. I really think this should have allocated to Pool D, as it would have been a lot cheaper and made Respecs a LOT more popular!

I did rush the Pool D section. There are actually only 9 drops total, and for a level 50 you have 7 of them to choose from.

Unless you do the first Respec, where for a 50 all 9 become available.

You can't get Touch or Decimation from the 2nd Respec if you are a 50. They max out at level 40 and your reward will be level 42. Only the 1st Respec will offer those 2 to a level 50 (they will drop as level 32).

As the title states, this is a quick-fire guide to level 50 players embarking on a SF/TF or Respec in order to earn a rare IO Set recipe.

1) First an important safety tip about difficulty settings. Players have a habit of lowering the difficulty of a SF/Respec to the lowest setting in order to get through it quickly.

When completing a low-level SF/TF (i.e. ANY that will Malefactor you to a level lower than 50) this causes no problem. You will always receive a level 50 recipe as a reward.

However, be aware that when completing a level 50 SF/TF, if you are fussy and want to earn a level 50 Recipe reward, you will need to set your difficulty to at least the second level, otherwise your reward will be level 49.

Also important to know is that the first Respec will award a level 32 recipe (or a recipe of your level if you are below level 32). The second Respec will award a level 42 recipe. Only the third Respec will award a level 50 recipe, and it will only do so if you are on the second difficulty setting or above.

Okay, now you know how to get the right level recipe. But what are your chances?

2) Let’s start with the SF/TF recipes, collectively known as “Pool C”.

I’m not going to lie to you about this. For a level 50 player there are 38 possible recipe rewards for completing a SF/TF, and half of them are garbage. Your odds of barely breaking even in terms of the time and effort you invest is 50/50, so be ready for disappointment.

In fact, even if you are specifically looking for one of the “bad” recipes, you’re much better off placing a low bid (of about 5K Inf. at the most) on the Market and waiting for 12 hours instead of wasting time on a SF/TF.

Seriously. There is a good reason the bad recipes are BAD. Either:

a) They are extremely specialised and therefore worthless (far more supply than demand);

b) Require at least 5 million worth of rare arcane salvage;

c) Both.

In the case of special “Proc” IO recipes, actually acquiring the recipe is often as inconsequential and trivial as walking from the Market to the nearest invention table. You should be FAR more concerned with acquiring the ridiculously expensive salvage than the recipe.

In many cases, the cheap price of a “rare” recipe reflects the fact that it costs so much Inf. to buy the salvage and craft it that people are only willing to pay a minimal price for the recipe itself.

Anyways, I said there were 38 possible rewards. Let’s take a look at them and their relative value.

GREAT STUFF

Numina's Convalescence: +Recovery and +Regeneration *****
Luck of the Gambler: Defense/+7.5% Recharge Speed *****

Admit it - you did the SF/TF just to try and get one of these two recipes, didn’t you?

And why not. Numina has steadily been selling for at least 12 million Inf per copy, and LOTG has recently skyrocketed in value from a cautious 8-15 million to now insane prices of between 25-50 million. Yes – 50 million. People have started to believe the LOTG Recharge will never be nerfed and given Unique status, so are more confident to buy and sell at higher prices.

Here’s a simple fact – anyone who is anyone wants 1 Numina Unique slotted in their Health pool power, respeccing to increase its slots up to 4 so they can make room for it without sacrificing Regeneration.

Here’s another – anyone with the ability to slot a Defence set wants at least 1 copy of the LOTG.

These are the cream of the Pool C crop. Find one of these and you are very lucky, and either very content with your new ability or very rich with your new cash. Good for you.

The Numina Unique doesn’t even require a ridiculous rare salvage (you’ll need roughly 1.6 million Inf. to buy the components and craft it, which coincidentally is what you probably earned during the SF/TF itself).

GOOD STUFF

Okay, so you didn’t get one of the great drops. Cry moar. There are still lots of other nice rewards you could receive. In approximate order of value, you might find:

Scirocco's Dervish: Dam/Acc/End ****
Positron's Blast: Dam/Acc/End ****
Aegis: +Psionic and Mez Resist ****
Devastation: Dam/Rech ****
Numina's Convalescence: Heal/Rech ****

And you should easily get a good return on your investment from any of them. Scirocco is particularly valuable both Hero and Villainside. The Aegis is in demand from squishies, and the others should net you a tidy sum or help you complete a very difficult collectable set.

Almost equally useful are the next batch:

Sovereign Right: Aura 10% Resistance (All but Psionic) buff for Pets ****
Mako's Bite: Dam/Rech ****
Devastation: Chance to hold ****
Ghost Widow's Embrace: Acc/Hold/Rech ***
Luck of the Gambler: End/Rech ***
Aegis: End/Rech ***

Which fluctuate in value now and then, but are decent, solid rewards. It’s true that only crazy Masterminds slot an entire set of Sovereign Right (who would willingly give up 42% DAMAGE for a trivial Aura effect?!) but the Unique is fun to slot into a set of Blood Mandate, so is still in relatively high demand.

Mako, Devastation and Ghost Widow should be snatched up quickly by customers needing that final hard-to-find rare from those sets, and although the LOTG and Aegis are essentially the worst of those sets (only people wanting to complete the entire set will be looking for an End/Rech) they are still far from worthless.

NICE STUFF

Well if you haven’t seen your earned recipe yet in this list, I hope you were looking for something specialised because that’s what you have!

Celerity: +Stealth ***
Unbounded Leap: +Stealth ***
Positron's Blast: Chance for energy damage ***
Scirocco's Dervish: Chance for lethal DoT ***
Freebird: +Stealth ***
Mako's Bite: Chance for lethal damage **
Time & Space Manipulation: +Stealth **
Sovereign Right: Acc/End **

This next batch aren’t hyper-valuable, you’ll be able to sell them but not for the same prices as the others above. Travel +Stealth recipes are (inexplicably) FAR more valuable when crafted, so if you don’t want to keep them bear that in mind. But why sell? The Stealths are a fun addition to slot into a PvP character or the Sprint inherent in your latest alt.

Of all the Stealths, TP appears the least valued. However remember that you can slot it into team-orientated characters such as the Recall Friend of a Healer, to give them even more fun talents.

The other Recipes are in fair demand, but to varying extent. It’s here that the intimidating price of rare arcane salvage really starts to devalue the Proc recipes. Villainside, Mako is worth about half the value of Scirocco, and the value of Sovereign really depends on how many overly-proud MMs are online during that particular day.

BAD STUFF

Oh dear. Better luck next time. Here is the “low end” of Pool C, where you will only be happy if you earn the exact recipe you were really looking for, and already have the salvage to craft it. Good luck!

Malaise's Illusions: Confuse/Acc/Rech **
Stupefy: Acc/Stun/Rech *
Call of the Sandman: Acc/Rech/Sleep *
Glimpse of the Abyss: Acc/Fear/Rech *
Trap of the Hunter: Acc/Immob/Rech
Pacing of the Turtle: End/Rech/Slow
Sting of the Manticore: Acc/Int/Range
Executioner's Contract: Dam/Rech
Malaise's Illusions: Chance for Spectral Wounds
Stupefy: Chance for knockdown
Ghost Widow's Embrace: Chance for Psionic Damage
Call of the Sandman: Chance for Self Heal
Glimpse of the Abyss: Chance for Psionic Damage
Trap of the Hunter: Chance for Lethal DoT
Pacing of the Turtle: Chance for Recharge Slow
Sting of the Manticore: Chance for Toxic DoT
Executioner's Contract: Chance for Disorient

Yeah. Most of these you might as well sell at the Quartermaster, it really is that bad. Still, at leas they aren’t weighted as more common like Centrioles are. Time to re-run another SF/TF in 4 hours for another try at that Numina!

3. Now for Respecs.

A lot of players seem to be confused about Pool D rewards. Some think they overlap with Pool C. They don’t.

For a level 50, there are only SEVEN possible recipe rewards unless you embark on the 1st Respec. So make sure you really do need either the Respecification reward or one of these seven/nine, or it won’t be worth the effort.

The main seven are:

Luck of the Gambler: Def/End/Rech ***
Numina's Convalescence: End/Heal/Rech ***
Devastation: Acc/Dam/Rech ***
Mako's Bite: Acc/End/Rech **
Aegis: End/Rech/Res **
Sovereign Right: Acc/Dam/End **
Sting of the Manticore: Dam/Int/Rech

They will drop at level 49/50 on the 3rd Respec, or level 42 on the 2nd Respec.

The 1st respec offers two additional possible rewards:

Decimation Dam/End/Rech ****
Touch of Death Acc/Dam/Rech ***

and whichever you get from the nine options will drop at level 32.

Yeah, it stings to get the Manticore. A little joke left behind by the lion-nosed midget. LOTG and Numina are once again the main reason for pulling a recipe from a Respec, and Devastation is a good consolation. The rest are fairly easy to purchase elsewhere, but still good for trades or sales.

Anyways, there’s a quick analysis – hope it helps put your drops into perspective!

Yeah the "two dozen Wardens" point wasn't quite accurate. In my experience the only Wardens who can hurt a Heavy are (rather surprisingly) the MA Wardens.

Otherwise it takes a double spawn of two big groups (i.e. four Wardens) to start making dents in a Heavy. A pair of Gravs, MA and Rad can do some damage, but even in those cases the Heavy can still two-hit ANY Warden except the annoying "shiny-coward" Invuln Warden, who requires a slightly more sustained assault.

But this is exactly why AFK farmers can now hold on to Heavies for much longer than real players.

I've been tempted to use a HVAC in RV instead of the villain Heavy, but I know that's like painting a HUGE target on my head saying "KILL ME AND COST ME A WHOLE 250 MERITS YOU LOVELY GRIEFERS".

I think the most fun thing about these transfers is that I can now level a new alt on a quiet server then suddenly ambush my friends with it on my home server

My biggest fear is still losing the name of my characters on my home server while I am away exploring other servers. Can we have some sort of reservation function built in?

This has achieved the opposite effect of what the Devs intended.

An active farming player using a Heavy to defeat Pillbox turrets and Longbow/Arachnos mobs for the XP/Infamy/Prestige rewards can now only hold on to their pet for a very limited amount of time.

At best, the Heavy will last for just under two pillboxes, or two dozen Longbow Wardens.

If the active player is attacked by a PvPer, the change makes no difference to how the fight would ensue. If the PvPer is tough enough to survive a hit from an old-style Heavy then the same applies to a new non-healed Heavy. The only difference is how quickly the PvPer can destroy the Heavy before moving on to the owner.

A weak PvPer will get owned by a new Heavy just as easily as an old one, still detracting from the quality of PvP in the zone. The nerf does not address PvP concerns.

In addition, a commercial AFK farmer who spends their days in the safety of their base now only need to check back every 25 minutes or so to replace their pet when it is destroyed.

This has led to a shift of power in RV, in entirely the wrong direction.

In the past, the active players had the advantage when it came to grabbing Heavies. Real players were faster and wiser when it came to knowing where the Heavies would be and how to capture them quickly. We healed and buffed them more often, and knew how to approach a Pillbox to get the longest lifespan out of one of them.

Basically, if an AFK farmer's parked Heavy could be destroyed and then captured by a real player instead, it was game over for the AFK farmer. Unless a PvPer attacked the real player, the farmer probably have no opportunity to grab a Heavy for over an hour.

Now the opposite is true. Because AFK farmers only hunt patrolling NPCs, their Heavies last a LOT longer than ones being used as intended. Three commercial farmers can hold on to the Heavies for up to an hour without incident, and have a great chance to grab hold of one held by a real player since those are now being destroyed every 10 minutes or so.

Once the new patch was implemented, the first thing I did was visit RV to discover three players AFK in the villain base, controlling three Heavies parked at the usual East intersection. Eventually one of the Heavies died and I managed to capture its repalcement, but I could only hold on to it for a single Pillbox before it died and was stolen back by the AFK farmer.

Kinda ironic and depressing. I think a timer would even the odds, or maybe we can just cut the nonsense and the Devs could create a REAL level 50 PvP zone without the Pillboxes/Heavies/AVs to worry about.

If Issue 7 had featured TWO high-level PvP zones - RV and a more generic, no-frills zone similar to Siren's Call, then all this trouble with PvP-PvE conflict would never have emerged.

No one with a brain uses a full or even partial set of Sovereign Right. The Aura IO for this set should be more like the LOTG Recharge IO - it should offer increased damage AND the Aura effect.

At the moment slotting Sovereign right sacrifices a MASSIVE amount of pet damage. The Aura IO replaces the single-effect +42% Damage IO from the normal pet sets. Anyone who thinks this is not stupid should try slotting Sovereign into all their pets and see how crippling it is to MM performance.

I'm fed up with explaining to upset new players that yes they have just wasted a week and 15 million Infamy slotting a full set of Sovereign right because it nerfs the damage of their pets by at least 1/3.

Aww.

So now we need to run the LGTF, hope the invasion happens on the right side, organise at least 1 full team to arrive in the zone promptly, fight off the crowds of leechers waiting for an invasion to spawn, and kill like mad to gain the accolade on new alts.

5 times. Cos you need 10 Assault Suits and very rarely does more than 2 spawn in a single invasion.

It will be hard to get this Accolade in the future...

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Hot, but where's the 5th?

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Their fire has gone out in the universe. You my friend are all that's left of their religion

We really should stop taking down those Flyers now.

We are going to need them!

ZOMG!