Lycaeus

Yep. I wasn't pleased to see that the shrinking resolution mauled the speech bubbles either. Ah well. Learn something everyday. Perhaps when I get a better grasp of my video-editing program, I can figure out how to overlay larger speech bubbles on the scenes.

Just from the top of my head, I think the speech bubbles went:

Wretch: Hurts too much.
Seer Marino: Paolo...
Seer Marino: Ahh!

Night Widow: Paolo!

Night Widow: Paolo...

Night Widow: Paolo, they are hurting me...
Wretch: Protect!

Not exactly Oscar-worthy lines. Just stuff that was mentioned in the story arc, if I recall correctly...

Thanks for the kind words all. Glad you liked it.

First video ever. So um, be gentle, please.

O Wretched Man - wegame.com - slightly higher res

The youtube version - lower res

Have to give lots of thanks to all those who've gone before, and been great help/inspiration/guidance:

- to all the CoX video makers, who collectively make my jaw drop and go, wow, I wish I could do something like that...someday.

- to the demo-editing gurus (Balshor and Zloth come to mind) who spend time writing guides, and programs to make life easier. (I must have used demolauncher2.exe and demoedit.exe several thousands of times in the production of this video...)

- of course, Scuzzbopper's resource site was priceless in its value,

- and also to the writer of the Wretched Man story arc, for one of the best villainside stories ever - which I shamelessly appropriated with a ton of poetic license...

It's Wretch. He's messed up in his head. His memories aren't so good.

Ohmigod...

*faints from sheer win*

But but what do I play first, heros, villains and most importantly, -where- do I play when so many of my server slots are full...

*collapses from indecision*

I'm not saying that CoH has good map design. I agree it can be tweaked to be more newbie friendly. CoV proves it's possible to have mission doors in somewhat more level appropriate regions in the zone, rather than scattered at random across the entire zone.

But I'm also suggesting that since it already exists in this fashion, one can also look on it as an accelerated learning experience since the tutorial already did explain about con color. One doesn't get debt until lvl 10, after all. And debt is a mild death penalty compared to other MMOs too.

Sometimes if you make the newbie experience too easy, they're not going to expect the ramping up of difficulty later on. And then you've just done a deceptive 'bait and switch' on them.

And sometimes, a harder newbie experience might just encourage grouping up, socializing and making allies. Maybe it's the Hollows who encourages newbie heroes to start teams early... who knows?

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Teaming: Yes, we probably would have benefited from teaming with more people. Why didn't we do that at first? Because in most other MMORPGs I've played, we usually start by soloing the first 10 levels or so.

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CoX isn't a typical MMORPG though. And part of its allure is the easy team formation with total strangers and extra power/role synergy in teams.

Yet, when I first started the game, I too soloed a good part of my beginner levels. Albeit on a scrapper - I had done some prior reading up to figure out this was my best newbie bet as a solo class.

Yes, the beginning game can be challenging. I joined the game when Hollows was around, and I was immediately funneled there. I had my share of faceplants from trying to dodge trolls and outcasts to do a marathon run to the mission door, of boggling at how the heck to get up to the KR rooftops for CoT, and thinking stepping a few feet into the Perez Park forest was an epic adventure (and getting my first Territorial badge at the bridge was like *wow, I am sooo deep into the forest*.)

And honestly, in my opinion, I think this is part of the fun. You are only a newbie once. Everything looks so much bigger and scarier in a beginner's eyes. It's part of the learning curve. You fall down... You stand up again, and try and figure out what not to do next time.

Making it too easy or too railroaded or offering too much handholding and coddling just devalues the experience.

For example: I tried WoW. I wanted to like it. After staring at a gazillion screenshots, the cartoony graphics had finally started to look appealing. I made an orc hunter, and was exceedingly bored by the time I hit lvl 12 because my entire newbie experience was on rails. The first few quests were in this teensy newbie area, don't go beyond there. Next few quests, in the surrounding areas. By looking at the map, I was wondering at which level I'd ever make it across the river. The only highlights of my experience were going to the big Ogrimmar town and sidetreking to play with pets and fishing. (Then I did make it across the river to find much more of the same mobs and quests, coloured differently, and I couldn't get myself to continue.)

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Asking for Help On Broadcast: Perhaps instead it would be more useful to implement a default-available, moderated Help channel

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Wouldn't you believe it? It exists. I just don't think it's made very obvious to newbies because it was added in a somewhat later issue, and just turned up as a tiny little extra channel square to select. And it defaults into a separate "Help" tab.

Another possible QoL improvement would be to somehow set up separate server MoTDs to introduce new players to global channels, and to the commonly used ones for each server. Either that or the community might want to step up and create a newbie-help type channel.

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City of Villains: So yes, CoV's early game is significantly better, and it would work wonders to improve CoH to mirror this achievement.

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It's more refined, and somewhat more linear at the moment because the streamlined level design really benefited from lesson learned from CoH. What's going to happen the moment multiple content options go in to accomodate people tired of seeing Kalinda or Burke for the umpteen time? Well, it might just get as messy as CoH again.

But I think the major issue you had with CoH's starting missions was in the map design. Apparently you had the bad luck to get a randomly picked mission door in the boondocks with red and purple enemies, and felt compelled to fight every single enemy on the way there. CoV's missions aren't so random, and some even appear hardcoded to various spots (snake pit by cobra badge comes to mind.)

Still, it should have been a learning experience as to what con-color actually meant though. It's a standard MMO trope. Don't fight or even go near stuff that's too high level for you. Or you die. Horribly. Maybe a hard pill to swallow, given you're supposed to be a hero, but it's something any MMO player has to figure out sooner or later.

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Mentioning negative aspects to friends:

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Again, my frank opinion is that you still seem too new to the game to give it a honest rundown to your friends. CoX has similarities and differences to the average MMO, and if you really wanted to let them evaluate the game fairly, you need to tell them both the advantages and disadvantages, and be ready to rebut standard assumptions.

CoX's strengths are the great costume creator, the wildly spectacular powers and combat sequences, alternate strategies from the holy MMO trinity of tank/healer/DPS, and ease of both teaming/soloing with -optional- loot.

Its very commonly stated weakness? Repetitiveness. If your friends do not enjoy the basic combat gameplay, you cannot win them over. It's just subjective liking. Period. No amount of dangling pretty costume pieces as bait will work.

Speaking of which, what should you do if your friend notices veteran reward wings and gets all glum about not being able to have them? Shuffle your feet and go "uhmm..."? => "Don't be silly, look, there's all these other costume piece wings that are buyable - for pocket change!"

By the way, I'm not saying that someone new to the game cannot try and encourage their friends to join in with something they feel is fun. But certainly if the new is leading the new, you need to accept that there might be pitfalls you're going to fall headlong into and just laugh it off as part of the journey. At least you're doing it together.

Yes, the initial newbie hero experience could use a bit of extra streamlining. When I went through the tutorial again lately, I did actually boggle at the amount of text that seemed to have expanded into a thesis - especially the sign regarding enhancement types.

But I don't think the problem is as huge as some people make it out to be. The difficulty seems to come if you're a staunch solo or duoist who doesn't want to interact with other people. I don't have much sympathy for that, I'm afraid. If you're a staunch soloist, I expect ya to be stubborn and persistent and have a big ego that can take a few hard knocks as you find things out for yourself...Or read forums for more information...

(I was like that, once upon a time. T'was only a month later, when I realized I liked the game, that I showed it to my best friend to let them make their own opinion about it...)

After all, I introduced three friends to CoX lately, and I was watching them make their stumbling way across hero and villainside.

No, I'm not heartless, another friend and I who did play CoX brought them into our SG so that they had a dedicated chat channel to use, and we did a few teams with them alone (to let them feel out teamplay) and with PUGs (to show them it's possible to interact with strangers and have fun.)

But I didn't hold their hands all the way either. It was hard, but I sat back and watched them fall into Grendel's Gulch... Swear mightily at trying to separate Red River trolls, scream in terror at the Igneous caves, and get mashed by Frostfire, etc.

I seriously think they're better for it. You've got to have some bad experiences to appreciate the times when things go right. It's not like they got crushed at lvl 1. By the time lvl 5 rolls around and they can make it into the Hollows, it's time to face some challenges.

I personally remember despairing that I'd ever make it across Steel Canyon alive. What the heck were all these purple outcasts doing in the middle near the trainer anyway? The first time I talked to a vet who told me that they could run a lvl 2 -anywhere- without getting any aggro, my jaw dropped. Then I decided if it was possible, I was going to learn how. That's just
how accumulation of skill progresses in an MMO, imo.

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In that I am denied access to existing costume pieces that would be the perfect match for a character I have imagined, it really does diminish my enjoyment of this game.


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This is just a really personal "I want it now" opinion. What stops you from being innovative and creating alternative looks?

I'm not buying the wedding pack for $10. Oh noes, does this mean I can never make a bride or groom character? Do I throw a fit because I don't have a pretty bump mapped dress? I still have the color white, some skirts, a pretty tiara, etc. Black jackets, pants, etc.

I think some of your points have validity in them. Certainly there's room for improvement. But I also think that some of the issues are just somewhat exaggerated for dramatic effect, and can be viewed in a far better light by just changing one's mindset a little.

I'd like to thank all the devs who invested their time into the Live Event regardless. I think it speaks volumes that the company cares deeply about their playerbase that they would attempt to do a storyline event "live."

Could it have been better planned / designed? Certainly. Having only one access point in one zone, and a random lottery reliant on clicking, would naturally lead to much pushing and shoving to try and get the all-important 'blue hand' cursor on the usher.

AP1 was an interesting study into human nature. (Well, I had to amuse myself with something since I actually got up at 4am and waited till my time 7am for the event to start. ) While the line that formed spoke volumes about the general civility of most CoX players, any pragmatic player would have shortly realized the futility since there were plenty around the usher pushing and shoving already, and the line wasn't moving at all.

I tried it both ways. First round, cooperate nicely, stand in line, and observe zero movement of line. Second round, jump about in the force bubble and try for random clicks on the usher - the design of the event was such that one would stand a better chance grabbing those random clicks anyhow.

Then I got lucky. I gave up and was about to head off - RL work, y'know - when I decided to poke my head into the other APs. AP3 was a model of civility. About 20-30 people, all sitting around the usher so that everyone could click with ease. Got in on the third try.

I think the lesson here is that future live event designs need a better entry mechanism. Be it a /slash command to type so that the first 100 get selected, or wedding tickets as prizes at a Pocket D celebration, whatever. Or even some kind of competition prize, depending on if we want to be as equitable as a random lottery or reward certain behaviors.

For the wedding event itself, I enjoyed it thoroughly. Brought back a lot of nostalgic memories of live MUD events, and I thought it was very cool for the devs themselves to be offering up precious time to be spent with their players.

I think a bit more information could have been made available regarding what would actually happen, so that players could participate with informed consent. Nevermind if it spoils the surprise slightly.

An automated NPC mission might also have made the story experience more shared by all, and might be preferred by some - with tickets to the "Live Event" as a bonus privilege.

Some players might not have bothered if they knew in advance it was just going to be a bit of emoting and speech and 'roleplay' binds and a bit of a pvp scrimmage at the end, with no special bonuses like badges or titles or what-have-you. That would have thinned out the crowd some.

Me, I had a blast with both things. I like the Paragon City storyline and being a participant in that story as a wedding guest and listening to those vows was fun. And I was standing at the edge and could react fast enough to slam a fire sword into some poor Bane Executioner Scout's face, and then 'dare' Ghost Widow to hold me by thumping her with the other fire sword. Sexy hold photo op for the win.

So thank you again for having the guts to hold the event in the first place.

(So all the best laid plans crumbled in the face of a flood of players. Mistakes happen. Insufficient time to prepare/organize is always a real life bugaboo. Can't be helped.)

Could have been better. But I liked it still. And appreciate the work and time and effort by various parties that went into it.

Thank you for the wedding!

Here's my feedback. Price is too high for the content in the pack. That was my first impression twitchy thought, and after looking at the stuff in the pack, still applies.

I'm fine with micropayments. The GvE pack was the greatest purchase ever because I make regular and daily use of the jump pack and pocket D transporter - even with the new free Ouroboros taxi portal service, I still like to go to the little exclusive tiki bar and just have a direct line to Pocket D.

I would love to have bonus costumes. I might even pay for them. But not at a pricing that is equivalent to GvE jump pack, or an LOTRO monthly subcription. That's just not commensurate for me.

See, I have to also factor in currency conversion because I'm not from the US, so a couple bucks difference can be quite significant.

But mostly because the things included in the pack are not worth $9.99 for me. Just a couple costumes and a bunch of emotes, that won't be used often. How many weddings / themed characters can one attend / make anyway? There should at least have been a teleport to a special scenic wedding location, or extra wedding SG base items to make it worth 10 bucks.

I'm in with the "I would buy this at 4.99-5.99" crowd. I would prefer 4.99 for the stuff included, but would probably cave in at 5.99.

$9.99? No way. I can do a server transfer for that price and get a lot more gameplay / return out of it.

Nice post. I quite agree with everything, (sidekicking, the great conveniences, the well-maintained forum community) except I'm in the weird minority that actually likes street sweeping. Especially solo.

So thank you for keeping the -choice- in the game (eg. Borea's missions) and for spending so much hard work decorating the recent zones (Striga onwards, all of CoV) with enemies that give you an immersive sense of the world and react so satisfyingly to being broken up. Even if most people zoom past them anyway to instanced missions.

Snipe single pulling is definitely possible. I've had a blaster on my team who said he was slotted with range HOs. He flew up on high, sniped one, and with some patience (and possibly repeated snipes) got them one by one to the boat.

I've also seen success at distances a bit closer too. Not at the ramp directly in front of the four - that tends to attract all of them. Slightly further back than half the distance of the flat plaza seems to work well.

Ah, now it becomes clear. You've never tried the game. I'm not going to be as crass as to advertise what is currently going on someone else's boards, when they're nice enough to let this discussion continue for community's sake. Google might help, shall we say.

Let's put it this way, Calicat's comparison of science origin and predominant Vahz missions are quite apt. And I'd also say that it's akin to something like being sent to Dave Wincott, and PvP information givers. It sort of steers you there, but if you were willing to veer off track, you're not required to do them.

I see Euler's opinion though. Fed-ex quests and a predominance of them can be a nuisance for people who hate feeling like an errand runner. LOTRO cannot be argued to be innovative by any means, it doesn't change the standard fantasy MMO formula. If you don't like that, you'd hate it. What it does is apply smaller smoothening changes to refine the standard trope and in-word-and-yet-to-see-if-in-deed, supports choice of gameplay. No necessity to raid to uber. Solo playstyle, crafting, small-group play will supposedly just be as equivalent. We'll see.

I think it's this element of choice that attracts me to it. Just like in CoX. CoX tends to be a bit more free and obvious about it. You don't quite have to get badges (though most people grab accolades because they affect the performance of one's character, even by miniscule amounts.) You don't have to pvp, you can get to lvl 50 without ever setting foot into a pvp zone or the arena.

Inventions will be less optional though, because it's a change that winds through the whole system. You -will- pop invention loot. Worse come to worse, I suppose you close your eyes and delete it all. But I think the design will skew it towards at least using the CH to get rid of it for influence for SOs.

Still, it adds a slight bit of depth to CoX, and is something else to do, so perhaps it's not quite the end of the world. Instant crafting is much better than having this stupid bar ticking time away just because everyone has always done it that way. Just hope the drop rates will be managed if it turns out not quite accessible to many. (Costumes, especially.)

Oddly enough, I find after getting used to the Inventions system, I can't play I8, I need I9. Leveling while not getting loot seems like a waste of my time. That certainly suggests it ain't optional. And that it has changed my mindset slightly.

I just hope it doesn't skew the generous community too much. One of the 'wow' things about CoX was how people would treat influence as no big deal and just drop it on lowbies as a random 'feel-good' gift.

So why'd you start with a hobbit? And why did you choose to do that quest?

It's all about perception and perspective.

Some people don't like to do Westin Phipp's missions. It isn't their idea of a good time. Too evil, too mean. "Oh noes, he is a regular contact, I must complete him, but I really hate what he asks me to do!" False thinking, isn't it? Nobody -has- to do Westin Phipps if they don't want to.

And I'm surely not justified in scorning the entire game of CoX just because I don't like one contact.

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Seriously, It's only a grind if you aren't having fun doing it. If you are having fun, how is it a grind?

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There you go. Applies to all games. Some people like some games, some people like others. Some people will never change their preferences, while others change like the breeze.

I wasn't having fun when I kept dying multiple times to AVs-turned-EBs on regular contacts on my dominator. Sure, I complained about it just to tell people I saw a problem with this. I got by via practical means. Second time around, I wasn't willing to face this again, so I did something most other people would consider a horrible grind. PvP Warburg missions over and over.

But I had fun doing it. Mission completes every six minutes or so was a lot more enjoyable to me than "crud, hospital again" every six minutes.

Tastes differ. And the one-sided rants on both sides are just being closeminded by not acknowledging that peoples' preferences can be different.

Some don't like LOTRO. We get it. Don't play it. Some are tired of CoX and think LOTRO is the coolest thing since sliced bread and cheese. We get it. Don't let the door hit ya too hard, can we have your CoX stuff?

I'd love to have someone say "I get what you're saying" to me, and I can stop hovering around this thread like a twitchy vulture.

<QR>

I'm finding both CoX and that unnamed MMO can live alongside each other in harmony on my hard disk.

I love CoX precisely because it is DIFFERENT from all standard MMOs. It's fast, it's furious, it's generally about getting into combat as speedily as possible and then having a roaring good time beating/blowing stuff up with an adrenaline rush. You can do this solo or in a team as you like (choice is good) - both offer slightly different experiences. ATs and powersets yield different tactical gameplay, and that's great. The short speedy missions and travel time and sk/exemplar allow for very easy teaming - no having to check for 'do you have the same quest I do?' nonsense, just pick up, put up a mission and yer off.

I9 Inventions and Hami and STF/RSF worry me a bit because it's skewing this game towards more standard MMO tropes, if still done slightly differently. However, such stuff adds 'depth' in that you have to take a bit more time and care to do things. One common complaint people who don't like CoX have is that CoX gameplay seems 'shallow' to them, and very obviously repetitive. Enter missions, kill mobs, rinse and repeat. Very guided, very waypointed all the way to lvl 50. Badges are a sideline 'ignore if you like' choice - which is good for a casual-play game.

That unnamed MMO provides the standard MMO experience, but in a relatively polished form (to me, at least.) It's not innovative by any means, but they seem to have taken a lot of the good ideas from all existing MMOs and integrated it into a unique whole, backed by nice graphics and the book's setting.

(Graphics tastes are extremely personal btw. I enjoy CoX's at high detail, a nice mix of superhero color with some realism. Cartoony graphics make me want to beat the artist's head in with a big cartoony hammer. Guild Wars had more sharp angles and intense dramatic colors, which was nice for a while but the theme and slightly-faux Asian/world cultures setting didn't personally do it for me. Unnamed MMO reminds me of Morrowind/Oblivion in the natural flora/fauna realistic sense, and definitely more Tolkienesque pastoral fantasy which I like.)

What it provides is a different experience from CoX. The standard MMO experience of living in another world. "Depth." Keyword: living. In any life, there's always a bit of boredom and frustration interspersed with excitement. The presence of opposites gives the good times meaning, and allows for storytelling. I was just traveling along, got lost, and whoa, stumbled into this nifty secret beautiful place. (You don't get much of the same experience in CoX map zones, with the exception of Grandville, which I really enjoyed exploring.) Limited fast travel forces you to amble along and look at the trees in the forest, and sends a message "better enjoy the journey, like it or not."

Obviously, for some of us, we don't like to be forced into this and take umbrage at the game design we find limiting.

Living implies time, and hence all those now-easily-recognizable timesinks are still present in that unnamed game. Living also implies persistent worlds/zones and less instances. Again, for some of us, we're tired of all that, that's why we gravitated to CoX for the different-from-other-MMO experience.

Some days, you just want a cotton candy handheld SMASH experience. That doesn't require hours of free time. That's CoX.

But some days (and I find I am in this camp at the moment), you want a bit more deeper and more immersive (epic?)experience than that. You're more willing to 'spend/waste time' and create meaning and goals for yourself and putter around (not go straight from point A to B) exploring new content. And that unnamed MMO offers that to me.

For the moment, it support solo play options and doesn't force me to team. Something I find very important and led me to abandon DDO. (Not touching FFXI from what I hear of its forced teaming stories.)

It's not without its flaws, all games have them, we ignore CoX's flaws too.

Lastly, keeping a subscription going is also about how much faith we have in the game's developers to keep communication channels open and strive to improve the situation versus ruining it utterly.

(And that's why Blizzard is never going to get my money. Contrast that with CoX having had me for 27 months and going. The unnamed MMO is so far still doing okay if not great.)

Having grown my 'first game' attachments elsewhere on a MUD, I'm ready to drop something I stop liking at any time, so we're still on wait-and-see for both. Because both offer different experiences, and I like it that way.

Should any game start to amalgamate and offer the same experience at any point, that's probably the time I go off hunting for another game...I hear there's an innovative barbarian one that the non-innovative unnamed MMO may be dropped for in the future.

So far, CoX has an assured place in my monthly subscription, though I'd like to see a few changes towards making it more distinctively casual-pick-up-and-play. Looking forward to I10 and more new content, while hoping that I9 doesn't bring in the gold farmer tells and the WTB Tech Wings for $$$ and other excessive stuff I put up with in every other MMO...

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But that's why I'm less likely to forgive things like Mako:Impossible; if I didn't care about running the TF more than once, I'd eventually finish it and never look back (Oh! Positron, I didn't notice you back there!). But I'd like to do this more than just once. That would be more feasible and more enjoyable if it didn't require careful appraisal of my would-be teamates for To Hit bonuses beforehand.

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QFT. Bolded a sentence for emphasis.

For those of you suggesting to "build teams," you're not supposed to be a one-man tank show, I think you've missed the point of the feedback.

We could. If the STF remains as is, I would probably take myself (invul/fire) because I don't have a lvl 50 stone/, and craft a team around me.

I'd pick up a stone/ tank if he was hanging around the ship, and play his secondary tank because I know he'd tank Recluse much more reliably than I could. If not available, then I'd struggle through and pray my teammates were the patient type.

Then because I'm not really willing to take random blasters and scrappers who may or may not have to-hit bonuses, I would probably end up picking and choosing defenders, and one or two odd controllers.

The most efficient would be to just be insular and do it with my SG instead of pickup groups, so that I know we would have sufficient stacked buff/debuffs AND heals to make it easy.

I'd probably end up ignoring half of the people hanging around the ship and only selectively picking up debuffers and a kin and an emp that preferably have tactics in their build.

By the time I finish stacking buff/debuffs on my team, I'd probably have room only for one "pity spot" for a damage-dealer - either scrapper or blaster or maybe kheldian if the kheldian had nova form. I'd have essentially taken up the other pity spot as an invul/fire that is a mix of tankiness and damage, but not sufficiently skewed in either direction to be as useful as a specialist tank or damage dealer.

It's not as bad as the LRSF for sure. There has been significant improvement in that whole ATs are not really desired villainside. However, part of that is just the disparity of AT synergy redside and blueside. There's still picking and choosing involved in the STF that you don't face on other TFs and respecs and trials. You can't just go with what you have and adapt, you -need- sufficient buff/debuffs or you'll have a miserable time of it. You have to scrutinize everyone's powersets and build and start commenting impolitely on them (or just not take them along.)

(For example: I had a random pickup team who just couldn't get past Mako, and we tried like hell. We went for yellows, lots of them, and stacked them and still couldn't hammer through his elude. We had two shivans around too. We just had insufficient to-hit boosts, def debuffing, no tactics nor vengeance. Prior to this, we were a beautiful team. We pulled off snipe-single-pulling, Aeon melted in about 30 seconds, etc.)

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Ran STF last night. We did fine no deaths up until fighting DR AEON...Now what is the best strategy. He owned us multiple times. What were we missing?

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Step 1: Do not accidentally aggro Dr. Aeon without warning. That is asking for a TPK. I like to come in from the left side and clear all the spawns first. If there is a spawn on the ramp (with Aeon's spawn on the right), pull it down, there's a convenient wall on the right to hide behind. Otherwise, scrapperlock melee'rs might have a chance of aggro'ing him unplanned.

Step 2: Ask who has the temp power. Make sure they know they have it. Get them ready to use it (on the PURPLE Aeon) once the tank goes in. I prefer to give it to someone else other than the main tank so I have less to think about and just hold aggro, but I've done the whole thing (eat alpha, hold aggy and zot Aeon) once by myself before.

Step 3: Tell everyone to focus fire on the PURPLE Aeon and ignore much of the rest. Presume your confusers know their jobs and will confuse the clones, etc.

Step 4: Invul tank fires unstoppable. (You can do without it, but imo, it distracts support team members from the main goal of pounding the #$)(*@# out of Aeon, which makes the fight go fast fast fast.) Then runs in, targetting Mr. Purple Aeon and doing whatever he does to soak alpha and hold aggro.

In my case, that's combust, fire sword circle and proceed to pound the living daylights out of Aeon. By the time I finish the first two powers, my temp power guy has zapped Aeon, debuffs have anchored him, PA if any is swirling around to distract the clones...

Quick fights. Very quick fights. So quick I usually have my unstopp crash sometime on entering the ship in mission 5. The temp power user just has to keep using it every time it recharges to prevent him phasing.

Interesting. You use shivans, and feel that buffs > debuffs.

My teams don't use shivan zerg rushes, as I rather feel where the upper limit of our powersets is now during Testing instead of swarming the whole thing with shivans (which are so overpowered they are practically required for the RSF.)

And my successful teams were ones with a hefty serving of debuffers along with a buffer or two (kin, emp).

One thing that seems to be a common thread - stacked buffs/debuffs still seems to be the best way to go.

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Not quite sure what point you're trying to make here.

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My point, in case it wasn't obvious enough, is to provide feedback to the devs as to what team compositions (that I personally experienced) were successful at running the STF efficiently, quickly and with little problems, and which were not.

As well as the specific problems encountered by each team / potential solutions for making it fairer to a broader spread of teams.

Why? Because it is my belief that on Live, just like the RSF, it is human nature to want to gravitate to a sure thing and a sure win. The majority of people who want their reward at the end fast and now -will- pick and choose and discriminate.

The good news is that the STF has learned from the RSF (and heroside archetypes are more synergized) and we don't really have an all-out AT discrimination scenario or total impossibility of completion.

We do however have a potential powerset discrimination scenario after the last LR buff where he can no longer be pulled away from tower buff range, and it seemed sensible to highlight this now, while in testing.

If the devs are alright with this, that's their prerogative. I'm just providing data and feedback. The experiences I had, and how it's changing my personal mindset as to the 'best' way to run it successfully. Perhaps I'm representative, perhaps I'm not. Hope my point is clearer now.

Cool. Please do. Note that you'll have stacked buff/debuff on your side with 8 defenders, and ranged damage to get by GW, and probably lots of stacked leadership, but it'll be a fun accomplishment to watch all the same.

A fairer comparison would be to match a TA/ def's contribution to a team against say, a rad/'s. But I look forward to watching the all-TA STF anyhow. You can perhaps get some inspiration from the all-dom, all-MM, all-stalker RSFs.

And then maybe ask why people have to prepare specially for stuff like this to attempt proving a point, while other heavy debuff teams are running around finishing it in record time.

It's not about forcing stuff to fit LRSF tactics. It's about which tactic is fastest given a high sack of hp, high sack of resist, high amount of damage "challenge." (aka Lord Recluse.) And debuffers are fastest in this respect and a stone tank (or enough PAs) stays alive with least trouble.

I think a storm debuffer is also quite valuable on this TF. With the exception of freezing rain on perma-speedboost AVs like Mako. I ran this with a stormie once before we crashed right after completing the second mission. The Aeon AVs wiggled a bit with freezing rain, but weren't hopelessly unmanageable. Mako would have just shot clean everywhere though, from a few ice storm experiments heroside and villainside experience with the jerk.

A bubbler would give you high defence. You'd be going for the unpredictable "will he get hit?" over the certain "if he gets hit, we can heal it up." Trust me, min-maxers will not chance an unpredictable lottery if they can have a sure thing fast.

I would seriously challenge all teams who have completed this successfully...

How many debuffers did you have? (2 rads, or 1 rad/1 dark seems common, more the merrier.)

How many buffers did you have? (emp, ff sonics - poor TA is left out in the cold again except for oil slick wth?)

Was your tank stone? If you completed it successfully with an invul or fire - see above - how many debuffers/buffers did you have? How many times did the tank die or allow a wipe at the towers?

Were any temp powers like shivans or nukes used?

And lastly, how long did it take if you answered yes to the questions above, versus if you answered no?

Ran it again today, learned some interesting lessons with a team that failed on LR's towers. Team composition:
invul/fire tanker
ice/ss tanker
ma/sr scrapper
elec/elec blaster
kin/energy defender
emp/rad defender
earth/emp controller
ill/emp controller

(And no, we didn't specifically go around badgering people asking 'r u kin,' 'r u rad,' 'r u healz0r.' It just turned out to be hilariously all buff and a lot of emps.)

From the start, it was obvious the team lacked sufficient damage. Even with multiple forts and fulcrum shift. You could feel it on the AVs. Their hp bar did creep downwards, but it was distinctly slower compared against teams which had a bunch of debuffers (mostly multiple rads, maybe a dark). We got through the first four missions slow but steadily, not exactly tortoise-paced, but close. Things were not helped by a mutual disconnect on mission 3, after we cleared the CoT around the tree. Mission reset. So we did it again.

There was a slight hiccup on Aeon. The team voted a tank carry the temp power, so I did. Only had one speed boost on (perhaps teams with /rad have multiple AMs in play?) and I took alpha – which might have led to some psi blasts on me (if there were any fortunatas in the Aeon spawn, not sure.) The temp power did not recharge in time, and Aeon managed to phase for about 10-15 seconds of terror before I could zap him again with it. Other than that, he went down at a steady pace.

Mission 5: Cleared the plaza and had successful single pulls of the patrons via the snipe/recall tactic. Fought them somewhere in the centre of the plaza, Mako, BS, Scir, then GW. One good thing about our team composition was that we had very little trouble with Mako's perma-elude, given the forts and earth/ -def flying everywhere. We threw in a suicide-vengeance just to seal the deal.

GW was first attempted using the ranged-keep away tactic, and it was ridiculous. She wasn't even scratched enough to feel threatened into using dark regeneration. So we tried letting all three of the melee go in.

Again, one good thing about this team was that there was a lot of hold stacking in play – the blaster had some, 2 controllers, and an epic hold or two. However, the prior successful debuff heavy team could apply just as much with the dark/ def, and the same blaster and epic holds too. And holds do not kill AVs. Hoping that the holds would stop GW's dark regen was more unpredictable than just debuffing her accuracy into the ground and watching her miss.

Also, I'm not certain that it was the holds as the prime cause of GW's fall, even with three melees surrounding her. Remember, one was an /sr, one was an ice/ tank, generally with one fort or more on, and the last was me with 2-3 fortitudes on me at any given point. That's a lot of defence. I did note that GW fired something conical and dark (which could have been dark regen), but there was no obvious jump of her health bar.

Long story short, she was brought down just like the rest. Slow and steadily.

The ice tanker had to leave due to RL at this point, it was already three hours into the TF, longer than successful team runs. We took down the flyer. (Which appears to be somewhat inconsistent in how it gets brought to the ground. -fly powers do not intuitively work, but odd powers here and there send it down. It would -not- be a good idea to have it stay permanently in the air though, as that would favor ranged ATs even more than it already is with GW's dark regen.)

PA was dropped on LR, once it wore. I took over in unstoppable with the empath alongside. Unsurprisingly, there was insufficient damage by this point, one man down, with no debuffs and the tower's high resistances. The tower dented perhaps halfway, before the crash took me down. Flyer also respawned.

Regroup, repeat. This time, we attempted me tanking with three forts spammed on me and no unstoppable. Good news, this worked! For 95% of the hits. Bad news, when you rely on defence, the 5% streakbreaker can really be noticeable. Most of the time, I took one bad hit of 1000+ hp damage, which the empath could keep up with, more or less, with a controller breaking off to give emergency aid now and then, and an occassional respite chewing. Then Murphy's Law struck, ran out of greens and I took two bad hits. Emps raced to keep me standing... the flyer respawned, wiped the ill/ controller, then hit me, I went down, and there was massive carnage at the red tower with a -sliver- of hp remaining on it. One last attempt only took it down about halfway before we wiped again.
3h 40min in, we called it a day. Note the contrast in time taken.

Uncomfortable Lessons Learned:
1) Forget politeness. Question defenders and controllers relentlessly on their powersets. Bring along two debuffers at the very least, preferably multiple rads. (Three or more rads = pwned TF.) One kin. Perhaps a dark if findable. Grab an empath to keep the tank alive for Lord Recluse. Illusionist controllers preferred for PA and invis/recall mission skipping, perhaps fire/ and earth/ for damage and def debuff if you can't find any illusionists.

2) Oh, and pick and choose the tank too. Stone/ tanks can stay in granite and taunt LR forever with no time limit, with one emp's assistance. If you have no choice, then go with invul or maybe fire, but make sure you've got plenty of accuracy debuffs to floor LR and/or can kill the towers in three minutes (and don't mind wipes after every crash.) If you have an ice/...you better have sonic fenders or a lot of rezzers and not mind aggro flying all over...(Our ice/ tank died 3-4 times in the first few missions, and another 3-4 times facing off with the patrons – par for the course, apparently.)

3) By being thus picky, you open up more team slots for blasters (preferably hard hitters like fire/ or energy), and maybe a scrapper (but not too many for fear of GW) that will rocket your damage up fast and allow fast TF completion. Heck, if you took along a bunch of debuffers, you could probably get by with a scrapper as tank, and if you had 7-8 rads/, you could probably tank with a blaster or defender.

Couple things which might want to be looked at:
1) Accuracy of the AVs.
Felt quite sorry for the ice/ tank. (This coming from the "unstopp crash = 50% chance dead" tank.) Having hoarfrost on allowed him to survive and hibernate. Hoarfrost off = two shot and dead. Our emps had a field day with their rezzes.

2) Recluse's damage or the tower's resistances/hp.
Overly favors powersets with high resistances, and heavy debuffing of acc and res. It was rather ironic that our elec blaster was able to completely drain a tower's endurance and have it still continue to provide buffs to Lord Recluse.

3) The strength of GW's and Mako's special abilities.
Admittedly, they provide flavor. However, the dark regen and perma-elude can really screw up a team that was not having problems in the first few missions, simply because no one pre-scrutinized everyone's powersets for tactics, focused accuracy, geas, stacked vengeance, etc. or realized that too many melee on the team may lead to insufficient damage against GW. Not sure that prescrutinization of powersets is desirable behavior to be encouraged either.

Honorable mention goes to GW's unbreakable, unresistable hold and her phaseshifting black hole. Bit of a nuisance, can cause death, but not really horrible -horrible-.

Finished one successfully with purposeful looking out for varied buffer/debuffer types.

Invul/ tank
Dark/ def
Rad/ def
Ill/rad cont
Emp/ def
Elec/ blaster
2 scrappers

We had tactics, vengeance and pretty much blew away the patrons. Missions 1-4 were finished in 80 mins or so.

We stalled a little on the towers, mostly because I was unable to tank Recluse without unstoppable on and an empath joined at the hip. Which is about 3 mins leeway at best.

Hit the red first, killed it. Attempted to tank Recluse without unstopp with the red gone, and got blown up for my troubles, the nice emp dying along with me. Learned better, and stuck with unstopp. The red tower got rebuilt.

We switched to the yellow to try and knock his accuracy out so that everyone's acc debuffs could land on him and keep him less able to kill me. That seemed to work a bit better, dodging a bit more, but still not able to tank him reliably without unstopp.

Even tried pulling the flyers' cohorts at one point to surround me in an invincibility defence shield. Didn't quite work. One lucky hit and bang, went down.

Slowly, steadily we got the other towers down, in between unstopp crashes where sometimes, we managed to recover - heralding a crazy period where everyone would be trying to catch my hp bar up before Recluse brought it down - or me just dropping dead, leaving Recluse to wreck massive carnage on the tower destroyers.

Got him in the end, but it took quite a while. Like twice as long as missions 1-4. Can't help but wonder how much faster it would have gone if I had been stone/ instead.

And I'm not sure I even want to think about how ice/ and fire/ tanks fare...

After trying this TF a bunch of times, I'm beginning to think it's coming down to the final mission and the patrons as make-or-break time. The irritating thing about it is, your team can smoke through the first four missions with no problems, and be totally unsuited to get past certain patrons. (ie. no geas, no tactics, no vengeance, no aim+buildup)

And so far, it's been pretty much pentad teams.

Which is beginning to lead me down the LRSF frame of mind. "Maybe I should be pickier with who I pickup for STF teams... " "What if...I found 6 defenders and 2 tanks..." (You probably only need one stoner, but for splitting aggro purposes, it's just handy.) That's a dangerous mindset...

All the ranged damage should cut through Ghost Widow, I'm sure there'll be at least one fulcrum shifter to add onto our general damage, and if there isn't a rad and dark around for debuffs and emps for fortitude, I'll be surprised. And there's the possibility of stacked tactics and vengeance for Mako...

I wonder if I can persuade any RO'ers to try this?

Invul/fire.

And the blaster was elec or energy.

We just had no way of buffing our accuracy or debuffing his defence any further. We even tried to grab a whole bunch of yellows from the arena at one point, and that didn't seem to do much good either.

I'm starting to wonder, how many teams that found Mako to be not too much of a problem had geas or stacked tactics?

Brilliant guide. One addition: Precision corpse targeting can now be achieved with a bind.

/bind <some key> "target_custom_next enemy defeated"

Herding is a viable tactic and it increases safety for the squishies. At the cost of total boredom because no one but the empath and tank are doing anything. Just sitting around twiddling their thumbs waiting for a herd to arrive.

The most efficient is to really jump in from spawn to spawn and move fast - players can move faster than mobs running to somewhere - but the caveat is that the tank better know how to hold aggro.

Still, knowing how to herd or corner pull is good. Or conversely for a squishy, how to get out of the way of one. It increases your tactical knowledge and allows you to choose when to use it. Corner-pulling is great for separating closely packed spawns that might cause teamwipes. Herding can sometimes be a fun change of pace, if not repeated on a farm ad nauseam.

And the most fun is when you have TWO tanks. One goes to round up the mobs, the other one stays in place with the squishies to take the aggro. Tanks trade off for a change of pace. Mobs can be fed into the grinder as fast as you can round 'em up and smash them, and there's no wait time for the squishies to bore them to tears.