Dr_MechanoEU

On the whole pretty excited about Issue 13, I like the Mission creator, already got ideas swimming around in my head for story arcs (now if any of them are any good...no idea but plenty of ideas none the less).

New powersets are always good and fun to get and the day jobs, while nothing outstanding are kinda quirky and I'm now thinking about where to log off my characters to give them a Day job that suits them.

Just the merit system is a bit 'meh' since I'm not entirely sure about it, yes if it means you can get rid of the [censored] of the hunter recipe dropping each and every time (I have gotten 3 good recipes from TFs rewards since it was an option, the rest has either been snipe recipes, pet recipes while on heroes (not as valuable as on villains) or fear recipes (got the full set on the one character that needed it), I feel I'm paying this price since I've had three purple recipes drop on one character while on teams, karma coming around to bite me in the behind as it were.

I'm just worried on how the devs are going to plan it out, are they going to base what awards how many merits on the average time taken or by the 'quicker than God on a rocket sledge' power teams?

Katie, yeah I can kinda understand it not giving that many merits because even on an average team...45min-1hr at the most and under 20min at it's quickest.

Once I've heard more about it and more about what costs how many merits I'll decide whether I like it or not. If it'll be about grinding the most boring TF available a couple of times to get one decent recipe then it's a meh, if it's about doing 3-4 average ITFs (2 hours or more) and getting a decent recipe...then whey.

Steve had one major advantage when it came to Psionic attack, he was undead, not much of a mind to read.

He looked around at all the clones...there was only one choice...he was going to regret this but he the creature had forced his hand.

He brought back a fist and plunged it through the crack in the meteor, his morphous gelatine like-body meant his arm was able to worm it's way through the crack.

Steve looked up at the meteor, "MRGURR!" and then he begun pulsing radiation into the creature.

If this didn't work...well...he was going to be in a lot of trouble.

Ah I see...

The other problem I have is how do you measure what TF is worth which amount of Merits.

The ITF can take a very skilled and well built group 1hr-90 minutes but can take some groups 2-3hrs+

I would be peeved if I had done 3hrs on an ITF and got a minimal reward of merits for it because 'it can be done faster'.

With the sudden change of target from him to Annie, Steve made a quick amble towards the Meteor, looking down the through the crack to the purple core below...lookin to the man that had attacked him from mistake for a moment.

Steve decided it was now time to test, from his eyes lanced beams of radiation aimed straight at the core. He jumped down onto the Meteor, his green goo hissed and bubbled but the Shivan was animated by radiation from other out of space meteorites, perhaps this was part of the mass that what he was once part of...a part of Shiva...

Steve decided that perhaps hitting the thing may or may not work but it was worth a try, if he was badly injured he could teleport away and spend a few hours in Bloody Bay feeding off the radiation of the fallen meteors.

So...

It's kind of conflicting then, he said in the address that it would hopefully end the farming of TF for recipes...yet the merit system will take longer than actually just farming TF (quick Katie etc.) so then....what really is the point in the merit system if it's going to take LONGER than farming a TF...

Rather than the merit system encouraging people to do the nasty Task Forces (Positron/Shadow shards) how about you actually 'fix' them first and don't make them so [censored] boring and 4 hours+ long, then add the merit system!

oooh here's a random thought regarding the Day jobs...

What happens if you log out in that little Egg hunter dev lounge in Faultline with the NPC devs...does that make your character gain a badge and job title of Developer...

That'd be wierd...

well you're an Arachnoid Exterminator, like Terrance Fobbs (or whatever his name is) so I hope you like bosses with EB/AV level regen.

Might be the only offline job where debt is the reward

Basically the idea is this.

For the sum of a low amount for each pack there is a series of packs which offers permenant versions of the halloween/Con exclusive style costume temp powers.

What I'd like to see (both these AND the con exclusive ones) are that these are toggles but cost 0 Endurance and also cannot be detoggled by any means (means you never lose the costume unless you wish to switch it off, powers can be made to ignore effects without causing the effect to be resisted completely, such as new blaster defiance meaning tiers 1 and 2 powers can ignore mez but the blaster is still mezzed).

Packs as follows:
Council/5th Column:
Zenith Mech-man.
5th Column Mek-man
Mark II wolfpack.
Mark II Zenith Warcry.
(The robots are actually subtly different and more than just a colour swap)
Warwolf (brown Warwolf)
Warwolf Eclipse (Black and white warwolf)
Vampyri.
Raserei Unteroffizier.
Vortex Adjutant.

Freakshow
Freak Chopper.
Juicer Chief.
Tank Swiper (keeping the Tank Smasher from the con exclusive).
Noise Tank.

Carnival:
Harlequin.
Bronze Strongman.
Iron Strongman.
Steel Strongman.
Illusionist.
Seneschal.
Dark Ring Mistress.
Master Illusionist.

Crey:
Male Crey Agent.
Female Crey Agent.
Crey Scientist.
Power Tank.
Juggernaunt
Male Paragon Protector.
Female Paragon Protector.

Circle of Thorns:
Hordling Lasher.
Behemoth.
Possessed Scientist.
Hordling Beserker.
Behemoth Overlord.
Hellfrost.
Succubus.
(The problem of Robes clipping something awful with kicking powers means that the various Guardians and Mages would have to be left out).

Shivans
Shivan.
Shivan Smasher.
Shivan Destroyer.
Shivan Decimater.

..And that's all I'm going to list for now otherwise it would involve going through for now because otherwise it would require going through every single enemy list and making a list of costumes.

I see this as a workaround to the problem of not being able to get enemy costumes as actual costume pieces and personally I really do like the idea of various packs I could pick and choose from.

This packs would have to be cheap enough to make sense for having multiple packs, prices varying depending on how many costumes are in each pack and offer a special discounted rate if you choose to buy them all perhaps with a bonus excluse costume thrown in (or not).

Considering of making Steve an ingame presence.

Now the problem is that Shivans are pretty much unlike anything we can create with the costume creator so here's the challenge...

I assume Steve would be using an armoured suit of somekind to protect his wobbliness...so can someone create something which looks Shivan-like enough while having the advantage of having an armoured-suit to go with it.

Shivans have no real secondary powersets (they have those Radiation melee attacks but we can't get those) so what kind of Primary (since he will be a Fender and thus */Rad blast) would you suggest for an armoured shivan besides going Rad/Rad (already have a Rad/Rad fender so want a tad variation).

Steve nodded his head, taking hold of the lamp post in one clawed hand and deciding that since these things were truly hostile, it was a fight to the finish.

Steve begun bringing down the lamp post on the heads of any nearby clones with great force following by sweeping it around him to try and give himself some breathing room. The meteorite needed to be destroyed and he knew it...moving forward he continued his assault and battery of any available clones noggins as he pushed towards the sky rock.

Steve knew what he had to do...

A massive ball of radiation built in his hands and he hurled it into the midst of the incoming army of clones. He lumbered towards them. A single Shivan Decimator can prove to be more than a match for some heroes. Steve moved into the midsts of the clones, radiation blasted out of him to the surrounding clones, the area filled with a green haze for a moment.

Steve begun smashing his fists down on the nearest clone, whirling and spinning in a ballet of radioactive destruction, fighting his way towards the meteor.

Steve looked towards the sound of the voice.

"Gurmgr!"

Steve raised his hands in self defense, not actively striking out at the charging hero, the body shock of the massive man hitting him caused his body to wobble slightly as he dug his gelatine feet into the ground, sliding back.

Steve gestured frantically at the varios clones, pointing out the battle between Union and his clone, a series of short, sharp gurgles coming from him as he gestured...though making no motion to attack Brian, the gesturing more like arms waved in panic, an odd sight for anyone who had ever seen a Shivan before.

Steve wheeled about, seeing the clone attacking Nightseye...through the murk two piercing beams of radiation fizzled through it, aiming to hit the cloned Amber Banshee in the back.

Steve had found a target and this one he was going for...lumbering towards the clone on the car.

Wandering past the group of heroes the Shivan stood there...looking about, possibly standing out a bit too much for his own liking but there wasn't much option when deciding who or what to strike first since neither side had struck him yet.

Hearing the sound of a fight going off Steve lumbered through the crowd towards the group of clones, some confused citizens not sure whether to flee away from him and back into the fray or carry on going the way they were so they stood their mouths agape at the sight of the cybernetically enhanced Shivan.

Steve had heard Union crash to the ground but could not see through the murk, thinking it another meteor he lumbered over, seeing the hero alright he looked up to the clone, things were about to go from an interesting detour to a possible fight.

Large green goo covered hands reached out to grab Frank from the falling rubble. The only vocal response was a Mhgurgle type noise as it set Frank down...

Now something more closely affliated with falling sky rocks shape could be made out through the cloying thick smoke, the ever present green glow of a Shivan though this one carrying cybernetic enhancements, for those that knew Edward it was obvious it was his pet Shivan, Steve.

Not far away from the Shivan were two large goo covered bags filled with nappies, baby powder, milk and a host of other baby orientated items stuffed in the bags and inside the shivans gooey body floated a wallet.

"Mugurgle gurr...argah...mugur..." Steve was trying to say something but obviously very few besides Ed actually understood Steve.

Steve, wondering if the meteorite had bought any of his kin, was deciding to take a detour to investigate...the Shivan begun moving off through the gas...the heroes in for a surprise when the Shivan came from behind, rather than from the meteor.

hmm but perhaps there should be less pap and more shiny? Why should all the vet rewards bar a special few be kinda meh simply because they want to pad it out so you have to wait for the good ones.

Perhaps once the vet rewards hit the 5 year mark they should stop adding new ones and start adding new stuff to the older, less appealing rewards. 5 years is a stupidly long time to wait for something for someone who has just joined us anyway and to be brutual honest the game may not even be around when the newbie would have hit his 5 year mark (all indications say that it will survive but you never really know, life and MMOs are unpredictable to say the best).

If your so against the 'pick your own vet reward' method which is the way I feel they should have done it from the start (that way they could had added rewards without worrying about giving some really cool stuff out and only a very slim minority getting hold of it) then prehaps capping at the 5 years and going back adding stuff to rewards they know are meh (Greek letters, Enemy group chest detail, Base teleporter (because both Pocket D and oroborous portal now provide quick access to many zones without the need for teleporting to your base), the non-combat pets, the one month where you get just a respec).

The point is the longer veteran rewards go, the more pointless they become, five years is already stretching it, there can't be many five year vets in the game if they carry on and actually do hit 10 years well that's just beyond freaking stupid in my opinion. Nobody is going to gleefully look at the next 5 years worth of rewards and notice they're going to have to spend a very long time playing an MMO to get a vet reward they think would be cool.

This way, once a vet hits five years, they will always earn the next reward since they already have those badges but for people just joining the game they get extra stuff added to those not quite so decent rewards.

To be fair the fact that after 18 months means you'll have all the good stuff tells more about how many less than wanted Vet rewards there are than good ones.

Looking through I decided that once 18 months was up (Samurai armour and 2nd respec) that there was really nothing that jumped out making me go "oooh shiny" until 33 months (Blackwand/Nemesis Staff) the rest ranges from 'meh' to 'kinda alright' (none of them are awful since they're free...something for nothing is always good) until you get to the later 3 and half/4 years rewards which is a long time to wait for something thats genuinely nifty.

While you may have not seen someone use complete samurai armour I've seen people using bits and pieces of it all the time but rarely in a complete set.

But yes the vet rewards need a revamp and I've always seen the token system as a prefered method.

Edit: I also hate not being able to sleep...got work later today

PvP for melee, yes it has seriously faceplanted but this is more to do with the way travel powers are set up and the whole bunny-hopping on crack thing really doesn't help.

I've always said there really is no easy way to fix PvP for melee ATs (apart from stalkers/Night Widows/Bane Spiders).

Though saying all PvPers are bad eggs is untrue, most respect a good fight, if you stand your ground and don't whine when you lose seems to be the thing most PvPers will respect from what I've seen.

I've gone in with a character completely unfit for PvP by their powerset choices (well their primary, Dark Melee which is low on the burst DPS needed to take out people quickly) and given a decent fight and nobody shouted out 'lolnoob' when I lost or even when they found out that I was DM/Regen.

Still my main conscern is that non-stealth melee ATs really does need a boost in some way for PvP to help it...what that is...I have no idea but I imagine the devs are hopefully (not likely) considering a few options

With regards villains being smushed by other heroes.

The fact is I've always viewed the CoH archvillains/heroes as 'recurring baddies in a super hero cartoon' sure you beat them down this time but they will always pop back up for more. Recluses plan to use the web failed this time, well surely the next bunch of heroes aren't going to be as tough so he tries it again (this is comic book/cartoon logic working here).

So yes you may have defeated the Clockwork king an hour before me but when I got to him, he'd fully recovered and was right in the middle of another dastardly plot.

An even easier method is to simply ignore the TF info all together and say it was a different plot by the same villain. Those towers powering up Recluse aren't using superhero powers he stole, they're focusing the pure will of the Gods themselves into him, making him stronger, faster and tougher.

Villains/heroes can and will bounce back...it's pretty common.

Sadly no...vengeance wont activate off of defeated pets.

Now it's offical.

Tad slow on the annoucement Ghostie, always gonna be someone who gets there first

Probably slow on the uptake or missed an announcement but here we have proof of the ingame ads finally hitting the EU.

Out soon apparently

For me personally it showed up in Steel Canyon by the University

Hmm..

Dr Mechano/Darkness Redeemed (same character): currently shifts through many places in time and space to avoid those heroes/villain chasings him.

He has lived in many places, an abandoned house in Darwins landing, an abandonded house in Kings Row (so he can study SCIENCE! without disturbing people). He has labs dotted about the Rogue Isles and his company head offices/factory is located in Sharkshead Isle.

By backpack he doesn't mean the crabspider legs. He means the back detail that all SoAs commonly have (The spider chest detail) apparently Bane spiders have been having problems with the back part of their chest detail disappears.

((got several choices if you want

Timeless Blade 42 BS/Regen scrapper
Radioactive kitty 40 Rad/Rad defender
and of course there is Ed, would make for an interesting choice))