NightshadeLegree

Didn't someone point out a while back that we in the forums are usually the last to know because sites like Massively etc are more likely to run a story they're offered if it's new and exclusive?

On the original topic - I got my 12 month vet badge in December. I've let my sub lapse once or twice due to burnout or a newer shiny but I keep coming back - so many character concepts and power combinations to try.

If I had to name one change I'd like to see it would be a major redesign of the story arcs and some of the zones on blueside. Too many blue side arcs are a) very boring other than the first and last missions, and b) have little or no relevance to the zone they're actually in. As a result I'd be hard pressed to name anything distinctive about the time I've spent in zones like Brickstown, Founders or Peregrine Isle. The street enemies may be level appropriate, but they're not necessarily zone appropriate, which also adds to the lack of sense of place I get from them.

The Hollows and Faultline on the other hand, are brilliant - two of my favourite zones in the entire game, red or blueside. I wish they were all like that.

I've yet to run STF or LGTF (I spend most of my time in the lower levels thanks to ever worsening alt-itis, and no, I don't want to be cured) but I ran an ITF with my Scrapper when her only IO set bonus was, as I recall, a moderate debt reduction bonus.

I'm sure there are teams out there that will only accept IO build characters, but I've yet to encounter them.

I'll continue to play whichever side suits the concept of my character, only now I'll have more ATs to pick from to fit those concepts.

There's too many long, dull arcs blueside for me to even consider running all my characters on heroside. 15 near identical defeat-alls, handed out by NPCs with no personality at all, and taking place in inexplicably weird locations (what, these lawyers have their offices in Perez Park? What, this sci-fi convention is being held in Crey's Folly..?) No thanks.

At least Grandville has atmosphere. Peregrine Island on the other hand might as well just be a straight road leading from the ferry to Portal Corp because there's nothing else there (except the Rikti hanging out on the beach... can someone please tell Vanguard about those guys?)

Possibly the OP is wondering about unusual primary/secondary combinations?

I've got several of the usual suspects - SS/Inv, Claws/SR, Thugs/Poison and that well known cure for insomnia Bots/FF - but since I pick powers based on character concept I do end up looking beyond the obvious sometimes...

I have an Ice/Traps Corruptor, whom I've barely played so far but who puts out ridiculous amounts of slows.

An NRG/Dark Corruptor, who's actually quite effective - using KB to bounce enemies back into the tar pit they've just trudged through is amusing.

And a Bots/Poison MM, who I rolled because I have a weakness for puns and had picked up the name Dr Digitalis.

First time commenting in this forum, though I've been enjoying your work for a while and always like the way you seamlessly integrate actual game play mechanics into the story.

This is a brilliant example of that. Great story.

I can't help wondering if anti-KB feelings are mainly on blueside.

I've never heard anyone complain to a Bots/ MM about knockback, and when my bruiser used to do his human bowling bowl impression before handclap was 'fixed' people just laughed as ten Longbow went flying through the air.

That's one of the reasons I prefer the "8 soloists who just happen to be on the same map" feel of redside teams.

Arachnoids. Despite having run a Thugs/Poison MM for 50 levels it took me until I fought Arachnoids with my SS/Inv Brute to realise just how nasty envenom really is. Having Unstoppable on and still taking triple digit damage is... almost unbelievable the first time you see it.

I'm also going to put in a vote for Spectral Pirates. Resistance to sleep, fear, slow and immobilise (I fought them with a Dom, it was painful); Flight, so resistance to KB (I fought them with an NRG Corruptor, it was VERY painful); -Acc and -Def; Negative damage and all this at level 10 (!)

Worst of all they're extremely rare, so it's perfectly possible for you to walk into the first mission of An Arachnos Ghost Story, full of glee at having unlocked a new contact, and totally unaware of what you're letting yourself in for.

The only time I've played with it so far is when I wanted to accentuate my favourite cool moment in the game - i.e. walking into the main square of Grandville as the Spider City music kicks in. Never fails to make me think 'oh yes, we're in the big leagues now.'

It's fun

Nightshade Legree - Thugs/Poison MM. Nightshade's run to 50 over a month and a half or so has set me up for a number of nasty surprises since, when my other characters run into enemy groups that Nightshade wiped the floor with and I discover that they're actually quite dangerous - Arachnoids, Rularuu and Nosferatu are three that come to mind.

I haven't really done a lot with her since hitting 50 other than a couple of SFs and Hamidon raids. The biggest change I made was finally respeccing into Stamina after running the Reichsman SF during Test. End loss was never really much of an issue since most things died really really quick... something that Reichsman definitely did not do.

Miss Fox - Claws/SR Scrapper. Took a lot longer to hit 50 since I got bored with her in the mid 30s to mid 40s - missions weren't difficult, since nothing could kill her unless I got very careless, but they took a while. Taking down every Praetorian EB on the first attempt was undeniably satisfying though. World Wide Red brightened up the last few levels though - I found Malta very fun opponents for this character.

Oddly enough both of these characters dinged 40 during AV missions, both of them have solo'd a -1 AV (Johnny Sonata's Soul and Terra respectively.) Usually I only fight EBs.

Nightshade Legree exists on all servers, because she's my main and I keep meaning to level up the character again to see if it's any easier now that I know what I'm doing.

As a thugs/ MM she already has pistols, so one of them will probably get rerolled as a Dual Pistols Corruptor when GR comes out.

I wish they'd expand the level ranges for the 10-14 Cap Au Diable contacts.

It was already too easy to level straight past them unless you went to Cap at level 10 and ran the gauntlet of +2/+3 goldbrickers while doing your newspapers and mayhem. Now, if I do one story arc in PO I'll be 11 or 12 by the time I hit Cap, and 14 or 15 by the time I've done my newspapers. That's solo, on moderate difficulty settings (+1 or x 2)

On the subject of PO, has anyone ever done Billy Heck's second story arc without turning off XP? I didn't even know it existed until someone pointed it out in another thread on a similar topic. Same question applies to the guy that Marshall Brass is supposed to intro you too in Cap, since I'm usually nudging 20 by the end of Brass's first arc, never mind his second.

I'm in the UK, and whilst I have a (mostly inactive) Euro A/c my main for a year now has been an NA.

The subscription is charged in $, so I suppose what I'm actually charged does vary from month to month based on the exchange rate.
Whether I log into My Account from the NA or EU site it takes me to the same page, with each account listed separately.
NA and EU Booster Packs are as separate products so I assume you'd need to buy the NA packs to add it to an NA account.

You'd also need to install the NA client. Between the NA, EU and Test clients I dread to think how much space this game takes up on my hard drive. (still probably less than WoW...)

If you go to Virtue, beware Pocket D



Edit: you'll need a credit card or paypal to pay for a NA sub. Debit cards (like Maestro) aren't accepted, as I discovered when trying to renew last month while eperiencing a small... ahem... difficulty... with paypal. Very annoying since it meant I lost out on the loyalty program by less than a week

The game is rated T for violence and suggestive themes, and since all there is is the suggestion of something going on I don't see the need for any retcon.

All the devs have to do is keep it subtle, include a knowing comment or some mission subtext that'll only be noticed by players who care about the lore , while doing nothing that overtly acknowledges anything. Which is pretty much how it works at the moment anyway.

With all of the Praetorians being given new looks for GR I can't wait to see Domi's new outfit.

Also, am I the only one who thinks she deserves a cooler powerset than Gravity? Throwing furniture at people is just odd (especially when you're outdoors) and now that there's going to be a whip animation...

I sometimes get the impression that Massively hates everything that isn't EVE or CO, and I'm absolutely certain that their CO coverage is all about keeping in with Cryptic for STO.

Amusingly, in the run up to release, there was a very noticeable contrast between the enthusiasm of their CO articles and a lot of the responses to said articles in the comments.

A wise man once said "The purpose of scrappers is to flip out and kill things."

Since killing things is decidedly unheroic I propose that every time a lethal damage scrapper 'arrests' someone they lose 1 'good guy point', so if they kill... er, I mean arrest enough bad guys they have to become vigilantes and eventually villains.

Alternatively said scrapper can voluntarily opt to take a permanent 10% damage debuff to show that they are holding back and not flipping out and killing things.

Is there a way to dual wield pistols and not look flashy? I mean it's a ludicrously unrealistic combat technique at the best of times (what I always wonder is how do they reload?)

Besides, understated is not a word I'd apply to any CoH powerset. I was working on a new character earlier tonight and spent ages in the powers screen just marvelling at the Dual Blades animations. After playing WoW for the last month or so the amount of effort that goes into making CoH attacks look awesome is very noticeable.

Just be grateful they're not giving pistol melee to Scrappers.



...yet.

If Praetoria is 1-20 on release then it's not an expansion - it's 2 or 3 issues - say 1 for the new zones, 1 for the powersets and maybe 1 for the graphics upgrade.

How long does it take people to do 1-20 content? I don't try to max out my levelling speed but even so if I rolled a new character and played only them I'd be 20 inside of a couple of days.

And after that... after enjoying the slick new zones and intelligent mission design and new enemy groups and stories for 20 levels... it's back to Paragon to Defeat All Freakshow in inexplicably placed warehouses for the remaining 30 levels?

Going Rogue has been officially described, several times, as "The first expansion to CoH since City of Villains." I don't think it's unreasonable to expect GR to have a similar amount of content, and I definately don't think it's unreasonable to be disapointed if that's not what we're getting.

I'm still a bit concerned about what '1-20' means. Like a lot of people I was really hoping that GR would have at least as much depth as CoV. I still have my fingers crossed though since it would seem like a waste to put all this effort into Praetoria only for it to be some 1-20 zones and then nothing until the level 50 TFs or whatever the new end game turns out to be.

On the other hand whether or not I can actually run the ultra mode graphics I can only see that upgrade as a good thing, as a sign that NCSoft are committed to CoH in the long term and ready to compete with newer flashier games.

Good graphics sells games. Good gameplay keeps people playing. If they can combine both then it'll be good to see CoH holding its own in the MMO market in the years to come.