Profanation

Welcome to the game! Glad to hear you have a favorable first impression. I am have been playing since the fall of 2004, and other than Civilization, it is the only game that I have any interest in playing.

An answer to your questions, I personally haven't gotten into the PvP aspects of the game, either in the 1-50 game or the endgame. Some have, but I would not say it is the focus of the game. It is probably one of the more contentious aspects of debate about the game's effectiveness.

With the addition of IO's, alignment switching, the upcoming incarnate issue, the endgame content has never been richer. I would echo Maestro's point that it is the 1-50 game that shines. For me, that is because there is too much content to experience with one character, and even the content you have already played can be viewed freshly by playing it on a different toon. There are so many different archetypes with different primaries and secondaries, that it is hard sometimes to not succumb to alt-itis and play the same material over again with a different primary/secondary. In fact, it took me two years to get to 50 for the first time, because I was enjoying starting new characters so much.

Also, good call Maestro on ParagonWiki. I would also suggest the Guide to Guides thread in the Player Guides section of the forum: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=122411 . It has great information for getting to know the game better.

One last thing--don't judge the number of active players based on your experiences on Champion. There are some servers with larger or smaller player bases (Freedom and Virtue frequently having the most people playing). This in know way is necessarily a reflection on player quality, but you may find fewer people on Champion. It is my understanding (and please someone correct me if I am wrong), but the servers are always displayed in your selection screen with your last visited server first, and then the rest of the servers in ascending order of population (meaning that the largest populated server is at the bottom of the list).

Have a great time!

I know every so often someone stumbles in here questioning the randomness of drops, so I guess I get to be that idiot for this post. My last four rolls at the merit vendor have been:

Miracle +Recovery
Eradication Quad
Miracle +Recovery
Numina's +Regen/Recovery

Also, in 24 hours of a lot of playing (mostly CoT and Rikti in Percy Winkley and Montague Castellena's arcs), I have had only one orange recipe drop--and that was a respec recipe. Probably 75% of my drops have been temp power recipes, which I know several people have mentioned.

Salvage drops seem pretty normal.

So, should I just book a flight to Vegas and maximize my lucky streak, or do you think something could be less than random about Pool A/B/C/D drops right now--perhaps in preparation of market merge?

For me, my fire/dark is just simply the most fun to watch tear through large groups. He is far from undefeatable and he has some real vulnerabilities, but there is nothing like watching huge groups cowering in fear, moving like molasses through tar patch and scourging like fireworks under RoF. Throw in a character concept that I really enjoy playing, and the immersion is second to none.

Just wanted to clarify a bit and update.

First off, the download did finish sometime in the middle of the night. I am back in CoH/V after three weeks off and it is great to be back.

My computer specs are as follows:

Intel i7 860 at 2.8GHz
8 GB RAM
1.5 TB Hard Drive
ATI Radeon 5850

I was downloading from a wireless connection N 2.4/5 Router, and my connection speed is variable but averages about 65 MB/s according to the staus screen. I have a laptop and two iPhones also connected to the router, but only one of those was on and active during the download.

What was very frustrating to me (and I apologize for letting my frustration get the better of me--this is a forum to discuss fixes not to post rants), is that the speed while downloading the Sounds.pigg file would slow down to 0.0 kb/s and stay there for several minutes at a time. A few times, it kicked me from the download altogether and I had to re-connect. It was only this file. Everything else went smoothly.

This download is incredibly frustrating. I have been a subscriber since 2004, and I just bought a new tower. I needed to download the entire coh client, because my previous tower's motherboard melted down. Please understand that I bought my current tower with specs that would run UM very well. Unfortunatley, one file has brought me to a standstill on the download.

I am already pretty invested in this game. I am looking forward to playing it again. If I had to deal with all of this crap with fixing piggs as a new user, I would run like the wind. I am basically dealing with what a new user would experience upon downloading the game client for the first time, and it is terrible. There has got to be a better way to install CoH/V, especially given that most stores no longer carry the MA DVD expansion.

I just got a new computer and I am downloading the game client. I have been stuck at piggs/sound.pigg for a long time. It is presently showing me 0B/sec download with more time than I have left in my life to download. Ironically, this is the last thing I remember seeing before my previous computer had a motherboard meltdown. Any ideas? Should I just be patient?

I'm looking at getting a new mid-priced PC for CoX. I came across this, which seems like a good deal. Thoughts?

Specifications


* Display Type:* Monitor Not Included
* Condition:* New
* Lifestyle:* Entertainment
* Operating Systems:* Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit
* Operating System Licenses Included:* Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit
* Platform:* PC
* Processor Brand:* Intel
* Processor Class:* Core i7
* Processor Number:* 860
* Processor Speed:* 2.8GHz
* Processors Supported:* 1
* Processors Onboard:* 1
* Memory Type:* Dual Channel
* DDR3
* Total Memory:* 8.0GB
* Memory Speed:* DDR3 1333 (PC-10600)
* Memory Slots (Total):* 4
* Hard Drives Included:* 1
* Hard Drive Types:* Hard Disk Drive
* Interface:* SATA
* Capacity:* 1.5TB
* Speed:* 7,200RPM
* Optical Drives Included:* 1
* Optical Drive Type:* 16X DVD+/-RW SuperMulti
* Optical Drive Class:* DVD SuperMulti
* Supplemental Media Type:* Media Reader
* Capacity:* Multi-in-one
* Media Types:* Secure Digital
* SmartMedia
* Memory Stick
* Memory Stick Duo
* Memory Stick PRO Duo
* Memory Stick PRO
* MMC
* microSD
* Memory Stick Micro
* RSMMC
* CF+ MicroDrive
* Micro SD
* Compact Flash Il
* miniSDHC
* Compact Flash I
* HC MMCmobile
* HC MMCplus
* Audio Description:* Integrated Audio
* Audio Chipset:* High Definition Audio
* Channels:* 7.1-channel Audio Support
* Graphics Description:* PCI-Express x16 Graphics Card
* GPU/VPU:* ATI Radeon HD 5850
* Video Memory:* 1GB dedicated
* LAN Data Transfer Rate:* 10/100/1000Mbps
* LAN Description:* Gigabit LAN
* Integrated
* LAN Interface Type:* RJ-45
* LAN Ports:* 1
* Power:* 750 Watt
* Mouse Type:* Optical
* Keyboard Type:* Multimedia
* Height:* 17.7"
* Width:* 7.5"
* Depth:* 19.0"

I really wish it was possible. Not for game balance, but just for pure awesomeness.

+1 /signed

I think this is an awesome idea. Waiting for the tf to start? Logging in a half hour before SG night begins? Getting a little weary of running newspaper missions? This is a perfect inf suck and time suck for the game.

Can anyone see the high roller room in Peregrine Island? "I'll see your 100M inf, and raise you an Armeggedon proc." *Tents Fingers*

I have really enjoyed my fire/dark corr lately. Actually, I have ONLY enjoyed my fire/dark corr recently--I don't think I have enjoyed one toon exclusively since my first 50 (an ice/ff troller, ironically enough). When you talk about fun, manageable AoE, with some element of risk still intact, I don't think fire/dark can be beat.

I also have had fun on a db/will scrapper. DB is just so pretty to watch, and it has a nice balance of ST and AoE. By the time you hit 33 (which on a scrapper is pretty quick), you have two high damage combo chains that are pleasant to watch and do a lot of AoE damage.

On a solo build, I would say howl is highly skip-able. Given that your tactic is to use siren's song to sleep a group, then draw your buffs off of them and ST blast them to death, howl just winds up giving them a wake-up call.

I would actually suggest a different track than what people have suggested so far. I would advise you to roll a few different toons, and find which one seems to suit your playstyle best. Hero-side, I would suggest rolling a blaster, tanker and scrapper hero-side, or a brute, dominator, and corruptor villain-side. Each AT has its own balance of risk vs. damage, and one will likely have a draw for you that will keep you interested into the later levels. It has been my experience that gamers tend to fall into two categories: high risk/high reward (lots of dying but lots of fast-paced leveling), or slow and methodical (very safe but using a more "perfect" playstyle). It's the difference between a fire/fire blaster and a mind/force field controller.

If you are new, I would also recommend staying hero-side. Although the early hero-arcs have you travel more, the maps are much easier to navigate. I found Villains frustrating at first because it is not only in a darker color spectrum, but it also has a lot of obstacles in travel, especially in Mercy (fences, walls, dead-ends, etc.) That can be very frustrating at first. If you play villains, I would strongly suggest picking up the Natural Booster pack to get Ninja Run. It makes travel in Mercy a really beautiful thing, as if Mercy was designed to make ninja run look sexy.

I would like to nominate fire/dark corruptors. Throw down tar patch, pull a couple dozen mobs with darkest night, toss out fearsome stare, then aim, fireball, fire breath and rain of fire. Watch the screen light up with "SCOURGE!" Generally one more round of fireball and fire breath finishes all but the bosses. My fire/dark has been my sole source of anger management for the past two months.

This was way fun and way frustrating on my fire/dark. I had been set at +1 prior to going to Ouro, and like a fool, I didn't change it before the mission. It took me four trips back and some inspirations to defeat... myself. x8. At one point, I had six Darkest Night's stacked on me, so I just ran out of the door. What on earth am I supposed to do with that? I had to resort to pulling a few at a time, and as long as I could get out my key powers (DN, FS, TP, etc.) before they did, I was fine.

I do have to say that this is the badge title that I carry to this day. Talk about a badge that you feel like you've EARNED. I didn't just run over a dot...

Thanks to all of you for the Flop tip. I was growing old trying to find bosses in PO. The Flop has tons of Marcone Consigs in a pretty tight space.

My apologies to the corruptor forum, and I do love corruptors, but might I recommend perhaps rolling a dark/archery defender instead? With the buffs to the defender inherent, especially while soloing, you would have a dark defender (that has for many issues been lauded as one of the safest sets in the game) that does damage that is less than but near corruptor level damage on a set like archery.

I know you have been in-game a while, but after leveling a toon to 50 on villains, you may find it fun to come back blue-side. And if you aren't thrilled with the content, including the new content, you can also take the dark/arch over to villain-side once GR goes live.

Just a suggestion, though. I know you came here looking for corr advice. It just seems like this particular combo might be really nice on Heroes with the new buffs to defenders' soloing ability.