PicassoCat

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Actually, on one side they are forcing grouping with "Clicking on x number of things simultaneously" type missions. They said that all of them are identified when just yesterday I got 1 that didn't say anything about forced grouping but when I took it the speach AFTER I got the mission said that I needed 2 people... Go figure that one out.

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/bug that. I'm guessing they had to go back in & flag forced-group missions more clearly once they decided to make them optional, so it's likely that particular one was missed. Neither of my test characters have hit any like that, so with luck yours is an isolated occurrence.

I'll just add the caveat that if your build requires non-Power Ten enhancements, then when Issue #2 goes live you will want to get your contacts up to Friend status at least, so that the ones who'll sell non-Power Ten DOs & SOs will open the store. Completing all their missions is nice, but not required.

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Is there a Design Decision to remove soloing as a viable option?

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I'd say no, there isn't. After all, they removed "group" missions from story arcs at the request of soloers, so I'd say they're still very well aware that CoH attracts a soloing component.

Now, the question of how "rewarding" soloing is, is different. My guess is that they never intended soloers to be soloing orange-to-purples, & that may be what's been toned down. (I'm all for that.)

Ah... I see. I assumed your concern was regarding access to missions & storyline. Oops. Silly me.

<shrug> I don't street hunt - with either my group or my solo character - because I find it boring. My soloer, however, is a claws/SR scrapper, & solos on missions, which means generally white-con minions, yellow lieutenants & orange bosses. At 22 she was able to upgrade half her enhancements to SOs & at 23 the other half; since influence becomes less of an issue with leveling, I don't think you'll have that much of a problem. At worst you'll have to wait a level to upgrade the second half of your SOs, which shouldn't be that much of a trial.

Wepps:

The concern over "forced grouping" was thoroughly discussed in this thread in the Training Room forum. It's been locked, I believe, since Positron gave us an entirely satisfactory answer in this thread a few days later.

In essence, on Test, new missions types have been added which require more than one person (simultaneous bomb disarms, for example). These were appearing in the middle of story arcs, & we were also concerned that two of them might appear together in a contact's mission list, gating us from soloable content from that contact. They have been removed from story arcs, & we've been assured that they won't gate contact content either.

You should have no problems continuing to solo after Issue #2 goes live.

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Thus far I have not been successful on getting ALL the story arcs with any of my level 20+ characters yet... Just level up too fast, but I'm NOT complaining about the levelling speed.

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You can get all the arcs with a soloing character, but not with a grouping one. My soloer has no problems completing all the story arcs for her level ranges (& still runs out of missions before she can talk to the next tier of contacts), but the group one has been outleveling contacts since Skyway - she has contacts she's never spoken to, & that's with a group of only three or four people doing nothing but missions.

September 30th. Because I'm leaving for a three-week, no-CoH-access vacation on October 1st.

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One thing that bothers me about this statement is certain arcs may be ruined by this. Springing to mind are some of the 40+ arcs and more noticable is the Envoy of Shadows arc where you have to fight the AV several times and it's a very tough AV I doubt anyone at that level could solo.

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This preserves the option to solo, but certainly doesn't prevent anyone from gathering a team for missions or story arcs. Having the option remain viable is the important thing for us.

Thank you, Positron. As someone who has both a 100% team-oriented character & a 100% solo-oriented character, I am in favor of more content, but not content which blocks previously-soloable content. This addresses my primary concern.

A question: If we are ever presented with TWO one-off forced-group missions by the same contact (i.e., cannot progress with that contact except by taking a group mission), & the contact's confidence bar is not full (i.e., additional missions are still there to be done), will this be treated as a bug?

Pinnacle here, since that's where my non-roleplaying regular group voted to go. All my characters have bios, though, so that should indicate my willingness (indeed, eagerness) to RP, should anyone on Pinnacle run into me.

I'm adding the "OOC: roleplayer" line to my bios, too - good idea!

Shadowheart (dark/dark defender): "Fear the dark!"
Alilorani (invuln/strength tanker): "En garde, miscreant!"
Cat's Cradle (claws/reflexes scrapper): "For justice!"
Chiaroscuro (dark/regen scrapper): "Let's dance."
Dr. Mnemosyne (empathy/psychic defender): "The doctor is in."
Heat Lightning (electrical/devices blaster): no battle cry yet
Kinesthesia (gravity/kinetics controller): "Gravity - it's the law."
Witchery (energy/energy blaster): no battle cry yet