Nethergoat

I don't think my appreciation for the 'new' Perez Park Experience came through quite sufficiently in that last post, so I thought I'd do a compare/contrast with the olden days.

Which, at the time, I was quite fond of!
Getting together a bunch of pals and running laps around the park, battling GIGANTIC spawns, was great fun. Let alone those halcyon days before the aggro cap when sufficiently powerful characters could 'herd' the entire park for a map-clearing nuke.

Even so, PP had its discontents- the maze of forest you inevitably got completely lost in, and trying to do anything, ANYTHING level appropriate while solo. Not to mention that horrific fortune teller mission, always buried deeeep in the forest where you could waste an entire evening just looking for the entrance.

So, if I'd been trying to run last night's mish back in the day I'd have had two choices- get a team together, or ignore the mission and have it take up a slot until I'd out-leveled it and everything was gray- remember, no dropping stuff in the old days, you either finished it or you carried it around your neck like the fabled Albatross of the Ancient Mariner.

This time around the modern amenities of hospital and inspiration vendor made it eminently solo-able. I still got lost in the woods, my new install not having the invaluable Vidiot map pack, but with debt being a non-factor and a hospital right by the gate there was no downside to using the 'fatal teleport' back to civilization.

The only down side to these improvements is providing less incentive to team. But the elimination of SO MUCH potential frustration wipes that out. It seems the game is shifting slightly to the endgame is where the action is model, which even as someone disinclined to spend much time there looks like a positive development.

The 'old' game was full of artificial drags on leveling. Lots of running around, lots of intentionally confusing time sinks (the Perez maze, certain of the mission maps that persist to this day, the organization of the enhancement system for goodness sake!). If the focus on end game power and content systems inspires these sorts of QOL improvments at the lower levels, that's a win even for players who'd just as soon eschew Incarnates and their like entirely.

Okay, back to the grind after an evening off.

So, off to Perez to talk to the security chief and get that wretched 'kill X CoT in Perez!" mish....morbidly amusing that I *still* remember it in spite of switching to CoV exclusively at its release & not having run it since.....wow.

Anyway.
Happily, in the modern world I can take the train to Atlas- while the missions are old and stinky, at least I can make use of structural improvements to the game.

I get the mish, hop into Perez and check things out- wait, there's a HOSPITAL here now? Dang, nice! And I can buy inspirations from the nice lady medic? SWEET!

I load my tray with defenses and head into the woods, looking for a giant spawn- I think my AoE's are good enough to 'arrest' everyone before I my inspirations crap out- let's find out!

Yep!
Also, I'm now certain inspirations are dropping more liberally than I'm used to- took out one big spawn and my insp tray is half full again. Burn them all off and charge into the next spawn- I figure I'll keep this up until they get me, as the hospital is right next to the zone exit.

I wend my way through the trees, avoiding the clockwork, enjoying the new CoT costumes as I apply the beatdown.

Eventually I bite off more than I can chew, but mission complete and I'm about 1/2 a nugget from level 10 and more Twinshot story arc.

Turn in the mish. Check my salvage, remember I have the super cool /ah command and pull up a market window. 30 seconds later, I've sold 6 arcane commons for over 400k, 175k for my two Luck Charms.
Nice to see some things *haven't* changed in my absence!

Finally, something other than street sweeping or kill alls- defeat toothbreaker & bust up his Superadyne operation. Not too far away- bop over with Ninja Run (amazing how much *nicer* this makes the lower levels), level after the second spawn then sprint for the boss before my 'big' inspirations wear off.

Always a pleasure to use Sands of Mu on a Bone Daddy, as I still have bitter memories of the good 'ol days when they'd one-shot you with a Shadow Maul.

Finish the mish, hop over to Blue Steel to level (my favorite trainer by far), pick up Lightning Field- I haven't had a single stamina problem yet, so why not? I love the way it looks and I'm a big fan of damage auras.

Time to log off- I want to save the next Twinshot mish for tomorrow.
I'll mess around with the character creator a bit before bed.

Oh, and I need to post another screen of Lizardroid- for some reason my graphic settings were flatlined in the new install. Bumped them up to 'recommended' and he looks MUCH more stylish.

I dropped $15 to pick up the First Ward zone & a couple of sale costume bundles.

Amusing!

GJ Paragon peoples.

viva Samuraiko!

One wonders why, with the Paragon Market now in place, they haven't leveraged the playerbase to fix up any number of rough spots in the older content/execution in return for 'points'...

this set looks terrific, looking forward to picking it up!

my two cents:

everyone likes fire because it's the 'best' in terms of game effectiveness.
sure it 'only' has damage, but as I'm fond of saying Death is the Ultimate Debuff. Match Fire with a secondary that provides its own survivability &/or debuffs and welcome to Easy Mode. The Goat is a fire/dark, and he's pretty amazing solo or in a group. His trip to 50 was more of a waltz than anything else- admittedly he was kitted out with really nice IO's the whole way, but the combo is deadly regardless.

Now just because it's the 'best' doesn't mean it's the most fun. My characters generally start with a theme that sounds fun to me, and barring the powersets absolutely falling flat or exhibiting zero synergy I always have fun. The Goat didn't end up fire/dark because I heard it was l337 but because he was a demon from beyond space & time- fire made sense, and so did dark.

For instance, AR gets a bad rap but is a fun corrupter primary. AOE, AOE & more AOE. Beanbag is a great mitigation power. Couple it with a control/mitigation heavy secondary and it's a lot of fun.

So what's best?
Fire is best.

What's going to be the most fun for you to play?
We have no idea!
Roll up something that sounds fun and go to town.
The game isn't so difficult you can't enjoy playing even an underperforming set.

Reading all this back and forth I get feeling when I get around to playing this I'll finish it, say to myself "huh, that was pretty fun!" and happily go on with my day.

Okay, leaving the shiny, new Atlas and it's shiny, new content behind and heading to King's Row has been an unpleasant wake up call.

I still love the zone, it's my favorite of all the originals.
But the content..blech!

So, I run my radios to open up a contact. I even did the lame-oh Safeguard mission, more to catch a glimpse of the original Atlas than anything else- with Ninja Run I don't need the temp jetpack. Right off the bat my contact sends me off to chat with a dude in the Hollows.

It's been so long since I touched the Hollows I figure 'oh heck, why not'.
I bop over to Atlas & hoof it to the Hollows...where the guy says "oh hey, this is the Hollows...no missions for you, but thanks for stopping by!"

Gee, thanks for NOTHING.

Back to the contact, which would really bother me if I didn't have my ninja run- hard to believe jogging all over hell and gone on wild goose chases was what passed for 'content' back in the day.

He gives me the opportunity to street sweep for skulls, or do a timed 'kill all' in Atlas. I take the kill all, hoping it'll open up more storyline. Do it, try and call him- oh no such luck, gotta run all the way back. Feh.

Okay, make it back, talk to him, and he offers me......street sweeping for Skulls OR talking to the Perez Park Security Chief.

It's like I took the Back to the Future car to 2005 or something.

I did level at some point, so I'm closing in on ten & the next bit of the Shooting Stars arc- I think I'll talk to the Perez chief then street sweep my way to the next level- I think this guy can handle the spawns.

Some general observations-

the new zone splash screens are nice. Not a jarring departure from the old ones, just....better. Cleaner, more modern, showcasing some of the graphic upgrades. I like 'em.

I'm enjoying Electric Melee, a set I've always wanted to try but never got into. I tried a couple of brutes back in the day, but they didn't stick. This scrapper is a lot of fun- solid single target damage, and already pretty good AoE at level 8, not even counting my Sands of Mu vet power.

the jarring transition from new Atlas to old King's Row makes the already weak older content look worse by comparison- it's like downing a mixed drink after brushing your teeth, just a really rough transition. it's nice that they've added what amounts to an official 'sewer run' PL system so folks in the know can skip past this rough patch, but hopefully they'll be re-working Kings along the lines of Atlas sooner rather than later.

Why's everyone pretending 'death' in a superheroic context is anything but a temporary state/plot contrivance?

States will be back, Sister Psyche will be back, the only question is when and how.

Unlocked my 'casual' stalker Mope this morning and wondered if the thread I posted documenting his earning power playing as a "normal" character was still around- lo and behold, it is!

As a FTP leech I can't post in it, so I thought I'd post a coda here- with the massive changes in the game since I started that thread the point of it has been rendered moot.

But scanning back over it I was curious as to what happened with that Numina's I posted long ago so I hopped over to the market to see:



Extreme patience pays off again.

Point one, hyperbole is the Lingua franca of the internet. Yeah it'd be nice if everyone had to pass a joint Robert's Rules of Order/Miss Manners test before they were issued a browser, but we're stuck with the internet we've got, not the one we'd like to have.

Point two, it's reasonable for the folk who're irritated by the extensive pool of typos to feel their concerns have been ignored over the years- as noted, there's stuff in the game that's been hanging around since launch with no action taken.

But fixing stuff costs money and I'm mostly in the feed resources to gameplay camp. Existing errors, eh whatever. Go after the huge ones, sure (Foce of Nature, anyone?), but for the most part they're a minor annoyance that won't even register with most players.

What I would like to see is some sort of effort to limit new ones entering the system going forward- make an intern read the missions, or at least assign someone to the 'text beat' in beta. Players have been spotting and reporting these things for years- correct them in beta so they don't get out in the wild where they instantly plunge to the bottom of the 'to do' list.

as a 5 year subscription vet I was already on the 'premier' train, if I understand these things correctly.

Store Review:
As SwellGuy noted, the interface is opaque enough that finding neat stuff to buy on the Paragon Wiki then searching for it is the way to go. Not a ringing endorsement of the platform, but hardly unexpected given the game's history of fumbling the promotional ball. Note to NC- you gotta spend money to make money. Kicking down for a better 'storefront', or putting someone with more marketing savvy in charge of the existing one would pay off handsomely over the long haul.

On the other hand, once I found the stuff I wanted paying for it was a breeze which is a big improvement.


Logged in the Goat and poked around the First Ward zone- couldn't get any missions, but it was an interesting, cool environment.

Ran enough scanners to get a contact in King's Row for Lizardroid, remembered why I always used to street sweep my way past it in the old days when the guy wanted to send me to the Hollows, logged out.

I may actually run the Hollows, I haven't been there since they reworked it....