Feralyn

Funnily enough, the second hero I created was a Fire/Ice Blaster. Being still very green at that time, I thought that was a great, cover-all-bases type of combo - until mid-fight one time I suddenly had the thought "Hang on a sec - am I actually neutralising all my ice spells with my fire ones here (being that hot stuff generally melts cold stuff and all?)" Still don't know if there's any truth to that...

In fact, most of the stuff I have learned about the game thus far has been the hard way, in true newbie-style. For example:

1 - When you are a Defender, marching up to an orange-conning Lead Brick and launching into Sands of Mu is probably not a good opening battle strategy.

2 - When you are a Dark/Elec Defender... no, you really can't kill that red-conning mob on your own. No, not even if he's on his own too.

3 - If you really must fly 200 feet into the air with your freebie jet pack, remember that it's on a very short timer. And that the resulting 200ft-freefall is going to be slightly more hazardous to your health when you're still only level two.

4 - If something hits you hard enough to knock your health down by 50% in one shot, don't bother turning round to see who did it or where they are. Just chuffin' run, you fool!

5 - If you're going to teleport that single yellow-conning mob out of that bunch of four orange-conners so you can fight him seperately... don't expect the aforementioned orange-conners not to notice.

6 - oh yes... and the time it takes to stop twenty feet away from a group of purple-conning mobs and think to yourself "Oooh, they're too hard for me, I'd better move on and not fight them" is roughly equal to the time it takes for just one of them to kill you.

Uuurrrrgggghhhh.... numbers.... all these numbers.... maths-maths-scary-maths-arrrrrrggghhh!!!!!

*takes a moment to lie down until head stops spinning and breathing returns to normal.*

I have now reached a conclusion; I am too stupid to play this game.

Thanks to all of you guys for taking the time to explain the logistics behind it to me - I appreciate your efforts greatly, particularly since you could not have known that you were in fact speaking to a total numbers chump. I think I shall just do what you advised me to do, TsumijiZero - I didn't even know you could do that, so thanks for the heads up!

Geez, I hope there aren't any mobs that attack with fractions or complex equations in this game... I really WOULD be doomed...!

Before CoX I was a WoW-head, I confess. It was a family thing; husband, mother-in-law, father-in-law and brother-in-law all played it - the in-laws all out-levelled me and husband to the point of obliteration within months. Started to hate WoW with a passion by then anyway, mainly because it got so darn clique-y, i.e. if you were in a guild and you couldn't commit to The Friday Night Raid (EVERY Friday at 8pm, no excuses no nothing) you got kicked out of the guild. That and countless level 70 smartypants in full colour-clashing Epic Raid Gear sidling up to you and barking at you "Your armour's COMPLETELY wrong, you shouldn't be wearing that if you're a <insert class.> Oh, and you're specced all wrong too - you can't even DREAM of your toon being half-decent without having <insert long-winded breakdown of Spec of The Month.>" I mean, I don't mind a little helpful advice if I actually ASK for it, but hey, who's paying my monthly sub here, matey? Not you, that's for sure. So butt out and let me play MY game MY way.

Oh, and yes... before that I played - and, oh God, it pains me to remember this - I played Star Wars: Galaxies! I know, I know, the after-therapy cost a fortune... I still have flashbacks about travelling across faceless wilderness on a stupid bike thing for TWO HOURS (that's real life time, by the way, NOT game time!) hunting for a harvester that I'd paid a horrific amount of currency for just 48 hours ago - only to find when I FINALLY got there that the thing had blown itself to smithereens three minutes ago because I hadn't managed to perform maintenance on it within the allotted 48-hour time-limit.

And that was one of the FUN aspects of the game...!

Yep, me again. It's possible I'm being a plank by asking this question, but hey, that's never stopped me before so here goes...

As I understand it, when you buy an enhancement and slot it, you can combine it with two more enhancements of the same type and level (or lower, within allowable range) before you get a message saying that you're trying to replace it with a lower-level enhancement. So, for example, if at level 5 I put a level 5 Health enhancement in Twilight Grasp, I can put in a further 2 level 5 Health Enhancements (or level 4 or 3 instead) so that the corresponding slot reads "5++", before I get the aforementioned message (and have to wait until I can get an enhancement of a higher level than 5?)

Well, this is an experience I have been having, and it's been confusing me:

I go to a Quartermaster, and buy a level 5 enhancement and slot it. I go off, do a mission or two and then go back to the Quartermaster. I decide to treat myself to another level 5 enhancement to combine with the existing one I bought earlier - I haven't found any as drops to add to it, so it's the only way to upgrade it right now. It's still showing as green in my menu, so it's not too low-level or anything, and, as I said, I've only got one existing enhancement slotted there so far. I buy another one, try to slot it and...

I get a message saying I'm trying to replace it with one of a lower level! But it's the same as the one I've already slotted, also bought previously from the Quartermaster. This seems to occur when I buy both enhancements from the same Quartermaster AND when I buy from two different ones. Even more mysteriously, this problem doesn't seem to occur once I've got high enough to buy level 10+ enhancements. Is this a bug, or is there some logical reason I'm unaware of as to why this should happen?

Thanks for the encouraging words, Dante

I had noticed, now you mention it, that she does function a LOT better in groups; I know my place when it comes to butt-kicking with her, so I tend to just stick to healing my teammates and chuck the debuffs in between when everyone's at a safe health quota.

When you say 'slot up Tar Patch with 3 recharges' do you mean as in have 3 slots on the power and then max up Recharge in all 3 of them? (I'm a bit of a novice at the slotting business - so far I've tended to just whack slots for each area where they seem to be deficient, and since Tar Patch seems to be one of my better powers it's only got one slot at the moment. ) I'll certainly give that a go, thanks.

Thanks to all for all the good advice I've received in this thread. I shall plough onward then; I'll make something of the old girl yet!

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Well then.... roll yourself a Dark Miasma/Electrical Blast Defender, my friends!

That's right - get yourself a REAL reason to never solo a single orange-conning mob again!

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You take two heavily AoE-based powersets and complain that you can't beat tough single opponents?

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Ironic, isn't it? What can I say... at the time of her creation I was naive and foolish. Through bitter experience and much faceplanting, I have since learned much.

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Don't delete the character tho, if you are really depressed about it /t me on Kawaiii and I will boost you into SO's at least and maybe respark your love for a rare toon.

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Is that 'rare' as in 'no-one else would be daft enough to make that?' That's a lovely offer, Donna, thank you. The unfortunate character is on the Defiant server and her name is Elektra Static. And yes, so far she has just about limped her way to Level 14. I don't really want to delete her because she's the Hero I've had for the longest time, she's in a great supergroup and... well, in spite of her general pants-ness, I guess I'm quite fond of the old girl really. Like falling for the runt of the litter, I suppose.

"Hey there, hero-makers! Are your toons just too darn FUN to play?

Are you bored with always having enough Endurance left to finish a scrap before you die? Worried that your local hospitals aren't seeing enough of you? Despairing that you're just NEVER going to earn that 'Pay off one gazillion XP Debt' Badge before you hit Level 30?

Well then.... roll yourself a Dark Miasma/Electrical Blast Defender, my friends!

That's right - get yourself a REAL reason to never solo a single orange-conning mob again! Or more than one yellow at a time! Revel in the constant stress of watching your Endurance bar dwindle away to a pinprick as a Lead Brick pounds the bejasus out of you! No need to worry about your faceplanting technique anymore - you'll be getting all the practice you need to make it picture-perfect! Even the hospital cleaners will greet you like an old friend - heck, they might even keep a bed on constant standby for you!

So, roll a Dark/Elec Defender now... you'll wonder why you ever wanted to be good at the game!"

*sigh*

... Or at least, that's how it seems to be at the moment, with mine! I used to believe it was impossible to make a really bad character, but this one seems to be. (And I don't think it's just because I'm rubbish at playing CoX, because I have lots of other, different alts who absolutely rock by comparison. Not that that's hard to do, mind...)

So I guess I'm looking for some guidance here, please. Is a Dark/Elec Defender a really sucky combination, or is she likely to get better once I get high-enough level to take Fitness/Stamina as a power?

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I enjoy a good bio every now and then, I've included 2 of my character's bio's in my sig if you're interested (I'm not to happy with them though)

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Hehee... I clicked the links - nice work, Imoba! Were the accompanying Google ads for social worker jobs and child protection training part of the plan too?

I wish I'd seen yours when you had it up on your avatar too, Damz - that's the kind of funny I like!

Like others who've posted here, I tend to write brief 'how they became what they've become' type bios for my avatars rather than the whole 'CV - childhood experiences - costume measurements' shebang. It can be hard to be really original sometimes though; I will confess I have resorted to the old 'from another planet' cliche on at least one occasion! Weirdly enough, the bios I write for my heroes tend to be spoof ones, whilst my villains ones are generally serious. Don't know what that says about me as a person...

I don't know about anyone else here, but I get quite a kick out of reading other Heroes/Villains' biographies. There are some truly imaginative players out there - and looking up the info on other characters often yields surprises. That player with the ho-hum costume sometimes conceals a brilliantly-crafted biography... and I'll admit that when I see a player with a fantastic costume but no biography I'm always a little disappointed.

So what makes a good biography? What's the preference in the community - the straight, serious-roleplaying stories or the the tongue-in-cheek, laugh-out-loud funny ones? On the flipside, what makes a bad biography?

My thoughts:

Good biography = imaginative whilst still being believable (as in 'logical within the realms of the game world.') Bonus points if it fits in with the character's name and costume too. And I do love a bit of humour, as long as it's not stoopid, schoolboy toilet-humour (as in 'comparable to WoW spam on Chat channels by 12-year-old boys who wish they could get a girlfriend.')

Bad biography = ones that are simply a blatant advert for some Facebook/MySpace/other website created by player, ones that consist purely of something like "I'm the best, I rock, I'll pwn you 4evah" -type stuff. Oh, and badly-spelled biogs; the odd typo I'll forgive, but when it's so bad it looks like it was written in gangsta-speak then it gets a thumbs-down, I'm afraid. (Yeah, I'm a pedant - so sue me. )

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Hey, it's not just actors on a Performing Arts course, y'know! How about all those long-suffering backstage crew who build the sets and take all the diva nonsense from all the aforementioned 'actors?'

Ooops, guess I'm drifting off-topic here. Okay then, lemme think a sec....

I must admit I like it when Mastermind characters get creative with their minion's names - seeing a sea of 'Zombie's, 'Punk's and 'Genin's et al can get a bit dull after a while. Especially when you consider there are no restrictions on minion names like there are with avatars.

Name your minions with pride, I say!

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Well...somehow I can't name a minion Arthur. I tried multiple times but all the time the name gets reset.

Is there something about a name like Arthur that isn't allowed?

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I got something like that recently, now you mention it - I wanted to call one of my thugs Lucifer but the game wouldn't have any of it. At the time I just thought it was because it might be considered offensive to Christians or something. Can't see how Arthur would offend though...

I always thought the naming of minions was more free-range because they were attached to your avatar, which HAS to have a unique name. Guess I was wrong then...

Hey, it's not just actors on a Performing Arts course, y'know! How about all those long-suffering backstage crew who build the sets and take all the diva nonsense from all the aforementioned 'actors?'

Ooops, guess I'm drifting off-topic here. Okay then, lemme think a sec....

I must admit I like it when Mastermind characters get creative with their minion's names - seeing a sea of 'Zombie's, 'Punk's and 'Genin's et al can get a bit dull after a while. Especially when you consider there are no restrictions on minion names like there are with avatars.

Name your minions with pride, I say!

I've just given up on WoW for a (long) while - after playing the game for FOUR YEARS and my highest-level character only being level 55 I kind of figured that I was probably a little too 'casual' a player to get the most out of it. You can get away with that in CoX, but in WoW you actually get grief about it ("ar u stil only lvl 55? Wen u gona get 2 70, man? Ar u [censored]* or somthin?")

Another thing that makes me love the CoX community over the WoW one is CoX's complete lack of know-alls who do an Inspect on you and then proceed to ever-so-'helpfully' /tell you: " Ur spec is [censored]* 4 a <insert class here>, u shud go 4 <insert favoured spec of the month here.>" I usually reply with something like "Well, since you know so much about how I 'should' be playing this game, perhaps you'd like to pay my monthly subs as well, so's I can really get the most out of my characters?" I mean, blimey, isn't the point of a 'game' that each person gets to play it the way THEY want to - or is that a horribly unreasonable and antisocial attitude these days??

<end rant.>

Oh, and I also had the grave misfortune to play Star Wars: Galaxies for a while (at the recommendation of my brother-in-law.) I'm still in therapy for that...

*Sorry about the 'naughty' words. I would have substituted them for 'rubbish' or something, but I'm pretty sure the original messagers would have had trouble spelling that, and I felt it would lessen that authentic WoW so-called-'expert' feel.

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People who you've never talked to before who call you mate immediately.

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You must hate Aussies then... G'day mate!

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As I posted above, I generally just hate people, and that is regardless of nationality, creed, religion, race etc. I'm fairly equal with my hatred.

Of course Australians are to blame for that darn Australian Questioning Intonation currently pervading British youths. Yeah, that annoys me too. I'm just a bitter old man.

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Blimey.. you're not my old Performing Arts tutor, are you? You could almost be soul-twins, y'know

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You forgot to say that spandex is way better than chainmail

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Ooooh, heck yeah! All that chafing.... *shudders*

And yes I agree, the sidekick system is complete genius. My mother-in-law plays The Other MMORPG (a lot, but then she's retired so she has more time available to do so) and all her toons are at least double the level of any of mine. It got to the stage where if I mentioned that I was struggling with soloing a particular quest, she would offer to "help" me with it, since "I found it quite easy when I did it with my Paladin, but I suppose it must be harder for a Druid to do without help. Although my Druid's doing really well at the moment..."

I know she means well, but there's something very disheartening about doing a quest at your level with some uber-teammate in epic armor, who just rocks up and one-shots eight mobs with one casual swipe of her Sword of Big Killing... while you stand there and hope you'll grab enough time to kill one murloc whilst she's busy decimating a horde of Elites. Hard to feel the remotest bit 'super' in those circumstances! The SK system instantly levels the playing field - and the fact that it scales both up AND down is the icing on the cake. Why other games haven't incorporated it or something like it is a mystery to me.

I've been trying to persuade my mother-in-law to play CoX for some time now, actually, for that very reason. But strangely, she seems a bit reluctant...

There are posts every day that talk about what's wrong with CoX and what could be improved, but... as someone who has recently defected from The Dark Side (i.e. another, massively heavily-subscribed, fantasy-laden MMORPG that a few people may have heard of ) I thought I would start a thread for all the things that are right with it. For a change!

Sooooo.... here's mine:

#1 - You can play it AND still have a life! In The Other MMORPG, a mid-level dungeon is estimated even by the devs. to require "between 3-5 hours" to complete.
3-5 HOURS!! Are they MAD??!
Don't they realise how a big a chunk of life that is for a mother of a two-year-old? In CoX, even if you've only got an hour to spare, you can still have fun. Missions are completeable in that time, even in big teams, so you don't have to miss out just 'cause you can't play for hours.

#2 - In CoX, you can look drop-dead cool FROM LEVEL ONE (as opposed to The Other MMORPG, where even at level 70 you can look like you fell in the local Amateur Dramatics Society's panto costume box.)

#3 - Not everyone wants to be; a pointy-eared elf, a giant blue goat-person with a dodgy Russian accent, a squat little person with an even dodgier 'Celtic' accent, a saucer-eyed toddler person with silly hair, etc. In CoX, you can be whoever (or whatever) you want to be!

#4 - The Villains really DO get to be villains! What other MMORPG actually give you missions where you have to rob a bank, for instance? Oh, they say The Horde are the bad guys in The Other MMORPG, but.... well, they're not really all that *bad*, are they?

#5 - The chance to play with mature, civil and courteous people - well, certainly a much larger majority of such people than could be found on The Other MMORPG (where huge numbers of 12-year-olds spam all the Chat Channels trying to outdo each other with how many rude words and phrases they can get in one sentence.)

I'm sure more will come to me. This post isn't meant as a giant diss-up to The Other MMORPG (and I'm sure I've dropped enough clues by now as to make it pretty obvious which one that is ) It's just a way of saying to the devs "Yeah, these are the things that make me come back to this game over all the others, so please don't change them or drop them 'cause they work and they're great!"

Of course, if you think I'm being too sucky-uppy/group-huggy, please feel free to barf discreetly and hope I get a Rikti invasion show up on my doorstep.

Well, I once had a really silly one I called CU-JimE (I made him look like a gold robot and stuck a red and green plaid skirt on him to look like a kilt.) But he was COMPLETELY rubbish, build-wise. Oh, and I had a Tanker called Cherry Aid for a while too.

Other suggestions:

Bob Villain - would take Hurricane and/or storm-related powers so his enemies could be "Blowin' In the Wind..."
The Fat Controller - For a Huge model Controller, surprisingly. Gave up a life of running cutesy little railway stations to fight fare-dodgers and other heinious scumbags!
Flarey Poppins - Ex-childminder turned fire-toting hero/villian!
Short Sir Kitt - miniature toon in mediaeval knight costume with Electrical powers.
The Perminator - ex-hairdresser turned Tank/Brute, with giant afro hairdo.

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well heres mine:

1) people who love ignoring.
i hate it when people ignore tells. i mean its not hard to reply to tells. jeez theres aload of ignorant ppl in game howadays (ok not really about the game but it counts )


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Can I just make a point about that? I understand how you feel, but... well, I am in all probability one of those people, and there is a reason for it. I am hearing impaired. I hear most of the obvious sounds like explosions and stuff in the game, but the subtle little 'beep' of a Tell is something that often disappears behind other sound effects going off in my game at the time. This means I'm generally only aware that I've been sent a Tell if I happen to be looking at the Chat window when it appears, and when I'm caught up in big fights or there's a lot of Broadcast chat going on they probably scroll off the screen before I get a chance to see them. So, whilst I appreciate it's annoying when you don't get replies to your Tells, it may not be just because the person is being rude or deliberately ignoring you.

Not sure if this qualifies as a 101-stylee beef, but...

#1 - Is it just me, or are Heroes weedier than Villians? All my villain toons are tough enough to take on yellow and even orange-conning foes without even breaking a sweat, but if I try and do that with any of my heroes they need a cup of tea and a lie down for ten minutes afterwards - if they haven't already died. I've lost count of the number of rumbles where my hero toon has had to run away from a mob screaming like a girl because she's down to 'flashing red' on her healthbar. And that's even the ones with self-healing abilities!

And - Ohhh, I've definitely got a couple of Mastermind 101s! And they're both to do with the Henchman!

#2 - Okay, here's the scene: my trusty Henchmen and I are off to do a mission. We charge across the town, slaughtering mobs of our chosen badge-earning flavour of the day as we go, until we arrive outside the entrance of our mission venue. I jump in, my trusty Henchman follow me and then...
... my Henchman are gone. Vanished, in a puff of smoke, it seems! So gone are they, that I have to re-summon them all, and then individually re-equip them all... and then put them in defensive mode and tell them to follow me. WHY? Why must this happen every time I enter a mission? Have Doors of Henchman Instant Death been installed on missions as some sort of security device or something? It happens on ferries too - what's up, do they get seasick and abandon ship? It's a total pain in the you-know-what to keep having to go all through that summon-equip-give-orders rigmarole all over again just because you've gone through a door or jumped on a boat.

#3 - I have always been under the impression that Henchman, by definition, do what their Master, i.e. ME, tells them to do. So WHY, when I tell my Henchman to FOLLOW me, does at least one of them insist on marching ten feet AHEAD of me to punch an orange-conning Wolf Spider Huntsman toting a Laser Cannon?? (This is a PARTICULARLY stupid course of action when you also consider that said Henchman HAS A GUN, which he will happily use to mow down blue and green-conning mobs that he probably COULD just punch.) What is the point of me taking Dark Miasma as a secondary power if they run off and do their own thing when I'm trying to heal them?? Huh?? HUH??!!

*hyperventilates*

Okay, I'm going to have to eat some chocolate now... I'm coming over all emotional...

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strange languages such as scottish.

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I'd like to complain about this post, but all I know how to say is "Och aye the noo" (because every Scottish person is identical, just the same as every English person speaks with BBC accents, except the yokels)

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'ee-urr, oi'm frum Devon, an' oi'll 'ave 'ee know oi don't speak nuthin' loik a yokel, thank 'ee verrry murch!

Okay wat I wanna know is why can't i teleport anywhere I like in the whole game like there should be a thing where u can hit teleport and a diealog box comes up and u type in where u wanna go like 'next to bak alley brorler' I mean wat's up with that? It's easy enuf to do - one of ur programy guys could nok that out in 5 minits flat I reckon.

And another thing the rez abilities sux in this game I mean why can't u rez with full helth and indureance and no nerfy stun or anything? And wat's with xp debt aswell? I think u should have no xp debt and u should rez with all ur powers on double strength for an hour after dying. And u should get double xp aswell.

This is the stuff wat makes this game cumpletely unplayable for intelligent people like me. So com on u devs! I don't pay my mthly fee each month to play a game that gets hard just when i least expect it to!

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When you walk past a policeman you expect him to thrust his chest out and a cheesy little fanfare to play.

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Not so much expect a little fanfare to play, but to actually hear it playing in your head!

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Dang, ya got there before me!

And you wish it would in real life too, don't you? Or is that just me...?

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..during intimate moments with your girlfriend you can feel rooks around the corner doing FAPvP,going worpa and at the same time rating your performance to discuss it later on SG forums,make it fun fact of the day,discuss it in SG channel,in SG global channel,on MSN, send it via SMS to spag (go Pyroz tbh)and finally make it his official boards sig.

Basically when you start fantasizing about Rooks irl you know you been playing waaaaaaaay too much.......CoX of course.

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Now that's just plain scary, sir...

- You see a bunch of 'yoofs' hanging around outside a shop, looking like trouble... and immediately look above their heads to see if they're 'conning' red or purple.

You get into your car and plug your destination into your SatNav - and then expect to see a little yellow number counting down in the sky above your head as you drive off.

When you walk past a policeman you expect him to thrust his chest out and a cheesy little fanfare to play.

You actually consider jumping fully-clothed off a pier and swimming round the coast to get somewhere, because it's quicker than going through the streets...

... Likewise jumping down a forty-foot height (well, it only knocks a few health points off and they recharge really quickly..)

Oh my - now I want both of them! Guess I'll have to keep playing for a good while longer then - it's a tough job, but...

Another thing occurred to me as well - how exactly do you SAY 'Sands of Mu?' Is it 'Mu' as in cat noise (mew) or Mu as in cow noise (moo)?

I'm interested as to which is the most popular choice for this Veteran's Award. With several alts I've had the chance to pick both, and for me...

Well, it has to be the Sands of Mu! Oh sure, the axe is big and powerful and has a bonus to smacking the undead around... but when that Sand of Mu hits, it never ever fails to put a big, goofy smile on my face. Pure comedy - for one brief moment you are the star of your very own, badly-dubbed kung-fu B-movie. And that, I believe, is a feeling that money cannot buy.

I'd love to know what everyone else picks. Am I the solitary saddo who just loves the Sands of Mu, or are there other like-minded souls out there?