Nethergoat

viva Seebs!

Pet AI.

Another night, another TF!

I'm not sure what's up with my recent roll- I've run more TFs in the past few weeks than in the previous few years combined. I think it's a combo of modern TFs being less than a million hours long (unless you botch the difficulty, heh) and the new LFG channel.

I put it in a window of its own up in the corner and keep an eye on it while I'm marketeering or whatever. Having it show up by default is great- in the old days there were TF channels, but you had to find them and add them, and the only people there were the ones who also found and added it...this is a lot easier and a lot more populated.

So I was hunting up some enhancements for Scab Factory when I saw a call for the Penny Yin TF. Remembering advice from earlier in this thread, I said COUNT ME IN! forgetting I was redside- I'm still thrown by this whole cross-factional chat stuff.

But the guy said he'd wait while I switched out, so I logged and came back in with Crafticus, my Crazy 88 field crafting shield/mace tank.

I really, really like him both in terms of powers and concept/execution, but he's sort of ridiculous to solo- if I turn up his difficulty high enough to present a challenge, it takes him an eternity to clear a mission. If I turn it down to where he can finish a mission in good time, he might as well be fighting grays for all the danger they pose. He's a character that needs a team to be fun.

So, logged him in, sent a tell and off we went.


It was a lot of fun- not too long, missions were interesting and varied without bogging down, and I've always enjoyed fighting freaks. Although I forgot the modern version has Super Stunners, so I kept having these awful end problems and it took me a while to figure out why.

Fun team- mostly controllers & corrupters, plus me and a fire brute. Nothing gave us that much trouble until the finale- we had Clamor about halfway down when a REALLY GIGANTIC Freak ambush showed up and resulted in a team wipe.

And I don't know if it's an intentional change or not, but I stayed put after everyone else hospitaled and the masses of ambushers wandered off. After the coast was clear I popped Return to Battle and hit Gather the Team once everyone was back on the map, and we made short work of Clamor without having to wrestle with 500 freaks.

Which is sort of the same thing that happened on the Silver Mantis TF, where the AV scooted off to a far corner of the map after our team wipe.

No complaints here- if it's on purpose it's a nice improvement over the old days of screwing up, then having this impossible spawn to contend with on further attempts.

Anyway, fun night. I enjoyed the modified Terra Volta battle, and it was neat experiencing Independence Port as the setting for something entertaining.

My favorite teammate was the fellow who did the recruiting, an Earth dominator who created a REALLY COOL homage to a certain emerald cosmic gladiator. He had his powers set to crystal, and a lot of them really looked like they'd come right out of a power ring.

Happily, nobody on the team was one of those report-happy types who equate narcing on players with "protecting the game", so we had a fun run.


Picked up one level and most of another in 45 minutes of play. I wasn't able to follow much of the story, as everyone else seemed famliar with the TF and we were barreling along at high speed. But it was fun and short, so I'll run it again & pay more attention next time.


It was interesting being the tank.
It is, along with stalkers, my least-played AT. I have my fire tank, of course, but he's different. Crafticus is more of a traditional tank- super tough, not real efficient at defeating stuff. So I mostly just ran around, jumping into spawns and keeping the aggro, bashing stuff when I had the end to spare.

I enjoyed it- we had an ar/dev corrupter and somebody with a fire primary, so there was plenty of AoE going on. Being primarily an AoE player on the blasting side I know how much fun it is when you can just unload everything and not worry about getting buried- I got a vicarious kick every time one of them dropped a big AoE and the numbers started popping.

Anyway, fun night. Thanks LFG channel, and thanks game designers for making TFs tired parents can run between dinner and bedtime!