ShadowsBetween

Just make a note that the leader is probably an idiot and move on. In all likelyhood, they either kicked you to make room for someone they know (which would just be extremely rude) or they kicked you because you weren't throwing out green glowing numbers on everyone. (In which case they're terminally stupid.) Some people, especially those who mostly have experience with that Other MMO, tend to expect Controllers and Defenders to be Healers, and seem to feel that anything *else* a Controller or Defender can do is beside the point, if not actually a waste of time.

Such players are usually a self-correcting problem in the long run. They'll either get fed up with all the "n00bs" that don't play this game the way they like, or they'll alienate every single person they meet who doesn't think like they do. Either way, they'll either end up teaming with a small group of equally deranged players, or they'll quit. In either case, it's a win for everybody else.

I'm not sure I've experienced what you are describing. However, on my system, this game is *very* loud. For various reasons, I tend to play using headphones rather than the speakers, so I set the hardware volume so that the system (Windows beeps and plonks) are at a comfortable level at about 75% of the system volume slider, and then adjust each program individually. Using that system, I have CoH at about 30% for sound effects. If I turn the CoH volume sliders up to max, I can set the headphones on the floor, three feet away, and *still* hear what's going on.

The fluid in all the tanks in Arachnos bases glows bright blue if you have water effects turned on. If you turn the effects off, it's murky red. The bright blue "upgraded" version also does horrible things to the specimen tanks (the ones with Arachnoids or Web Mistress bodies in them.)

For Illusion Control, Phantom Army: In the costume creator, when you look at this power the phantoms almost always match the character's body type. IE, Huge characters get Huge phantoms, females get female phantoms. It would be really nice if this could be added as an option for the actual power. Or better, just let the player select one body type.

It would be nice if all the pet powers had an "alternate animation" choice that summoned a different looking but equivalent pet, but I'm guessing that's way outside the bounds of what's being asked here.

Just out of curiosity, but the Cathedral of Pain is just going to be a "raid" thing all by itself, right? It's not going to be something that we need to do for Incarnate related advancement? I ask, because I'm curious whether I'm going to end up locked out of the Incarnate system. I've been playing for almost two years, and I don't even *know* anyone who has tried Hamidon, and on my server I was never even able to complete the stupid Banner badges on even one of my characters. So a new "super raid" showing up at around the same time as the first step in the Incarnate stuff makes me a little nervous.

My problem with a lot of the writing in the game, is that it's simply not very interesting. "Rar! I am evil! Watch me kick this kitten!" Lord Recluse is actually a good example of this. He's stupidly, continuously, mindlessly "evil," in the same way as most Saturday morning cartoon villains. Some of his henchmen get way more interesting stories. Sirocco is cursed, and would really like to *not* be evil. Failing that, he'd like to be sure he's at least acting of his own free will. Ghost Widow feels she is trapped as an echo of her own former life. Hardcase is a mercenary, and believes anyone about to be torn apart for making a deal with demons probably deserves it. Random civilians do not. Marshal Brass has a mandate to preserve order, and realizes that randomly executing everyone who walks by isn't a good way to bring stability to a city.

An interesting villain is not just someone who runs around setting fire to people to prove how evil he is. That's a psychopath, and while some psychos can be interesting, most are not. (And in actual comics, the ones who are not deeper than that generally exist only to give the more bad-*** heroes someone they can kill with a clear conscience.) Interesting villains are ones that have a reason for what they're doing, and/or their own moral code.

Batman: the Animated Series was pretty good at taking silly, throw away bad guys and making them credible, by making them *relatable.* Mr. Freeze became a dark reflection of Batman - an example of what can happen when obsession and the need for revenge overwhelm a person's humanity, and a glimpse at what Batman could easily become with just a little push in the wrong direction. As opposed to a goofy dingbat that froze people because that was his gimmick. And when the audience sees *why* Mr Freeze is willing to destroy half the city to kill one man, almost anyone can understand why he feels that way.

An easy villain is one that the hero can throw into a fusion reactor without feeling bad. A *good* villain is one that can cause the hero to question everything they believe in. One that puts the hero, and the audience, in the uncomfortable position of having to consider, even for a moment, that the villain may have a point. Darkseid is an easy villain. Heath Ledger's Joker is a *good* one. His basic motivation would seem to be "he's crazy." But it's more than that. He wants to prove that everyone is wrong. People aren't good and honest and kind. They aren't better than he is. Not random people, not Harvey Dent, not even Batman. Push them hard enough, and you can make anyone crazy. You can make anyone a killer. And he almost wins.

*Edit* And the problem is, most of the writing in CoV casts you as an easy villain. You get bossed around by loonies like Dr. Creed and Psymon Omega. You work as a random thug for most of the rest. You aren't even allowed to oppose Lord Recluse because he's an obvious cretin and lunatic, you're only allowed when it's clear that his plan would kill you and destroy the world. Which would be an incovenience because that's where you keep all your stuff.

On the topic of unstable people being, you know, crazy, there's also the issue of character gender. I have characters of both genders, which means by definition I'm a digital crossdresser. Add the fact that some of them are cats or dragons or werewolves or whatever, and according to some people I'm a dangerous pervert. Frankly, I don't care how unlikely it is, I would really rather avoid the possibility of gaining a new poison pen pal because I have a given avatar in a game.

Not that it matters (probably not even to Blizzard) but this is the final straw for me. I've had a WoW account for a while. As of this afternoon, it is canceled. First, RealID was "totally optional" and people shot down complaints about how invasive and stupid it was by pointing out that you could just not use it. Now, it has extended into the forums, and it is *not* optional if you wish to post. I'm not waiting around for them to extend it to the Armory (which you already have no way to opt out of) or whatever idiotic direction they go next.

Do I expect a "massive customer backlash" and millions of people to cancel their accounts? No. Gamers have, as a group, proven that they are very loud but essentially spineless. Look at all the screaming over Modern Warfare or Left 4 Dead 2, both of which easily wandered into the top ten for launch sales figures, even with all the "boycotts."

So, I'll exercise the one vote that I have on this issue. I'll be taking my gaming dollars elsewhere. On the plus side, Blizzard just saved me about $150 a year, so it's not all bad. *Edit* Actually, they've saved me more than that, as I will no longer be considering Starcraft 2 or Diablo 3 for purchase either.

I tend to dismiss my pets before I leave missions. If I'm in a zone where I can get experience, I'm in a zone where the street thugs will take pot shots at me, so it's a good bet that I'll have to resummon one of the Tier One pets anyway. And there are still some weird bugs related to pets changing zones - it's better than it was, but they still tend to flip out once in a while or forget who they're supposed to belong to.

For most of the pets, the big inconvenience is that they have weird bounding boxes, and it's easy to select them by mistake at close range. When people are complaining about the noise, they almost certainly mean Demons, since almost all the other pets make very little noise when they aren't fighting. You can usually tell if the bots are around, since once in a while they'll clank around as they change position, and the Protectors will probably recast shields at some point. Generally though, I find Demons a lot less annoying than someone who stands around for ten minutes with the Spines aura or Footstomp on auto.

The problem is, in my limited experience with teaming, "what we're looking for" is a delusion on the part of the one with the star. I have been on teams of solid single ATs. Including a team of all stalkers. They seem to do just fine. Yes, buffing and healing and extra defense are useful, if they're available. But they *aren't needed.* Outside "Master Of" Task Force attempts, there really isn't much in this game that can't be overcome by throwing enough damage at it.

Yes, it *is* possible to build a nearly useless character. I've even teamed with a couple - the most common I've seen are Masterminds who take almost nothing from either set in favor of Pool powers. ("So... Hasten and Tough and Weave and Stamina and the entire Leadership pool... you can summon pets, right?") And "support" type characters who are so busy taking support powers that they can't actually hit anything. "Great. So, we've got 60% defense and 120% resistance to everything. I don't suppose anyone can actually *attack* the enemy?" Funny thing though, all the useless characters I've met have been "team" builds that centered on the idea that someone else would be doing all the damage. But I guess they were pulling their own weight, right?

A note about the Global Friends list - this allows you to see if that *Player* is online, on any of their characters. It can be incredibly useful for keeping track of players you like. However, since it does allow you to see if someone is online with any character on any server, some people are reluctant to accept Global Friends requests. (Personally, I have about three people on mine, and no real desire to add more.) Also, a Global Friend request has to be mutually accepted - both players have to agree to it. And if you delete a player off your global friend list, you disappear from their list as well. If someone declines a Global Friend request, don't be offended. Just realize that there are a lot a reasons some one might not be comfortable with giving you access that that information right now.

The alternative is the local Friends list, which works pretty much exactly like the one in WoW. If a character is on your friends list, you'll be able to tell if that character is online, but you won't be able to see if that player might be online with a different character. For a lot of players, the standard Friends list is fairly useless - this game is quite Alt friendly, so a given player could be online every day for months without loading the character you've got as a Friend. (Which is why some people jump straight to a Global Friends request.) *Edit* Also, the friend list is specific to your character as well. If your Blaster adds a scrapper as a friend, and then you make a second character, the second character will not have that scrapper as a friend. Which is an additional reason why very few people bother with the standard friends list. *End edit*

Something this game has, that WoW does not, is Notes and Rankings. If you meet another character that you like, right click on them and look for an option labeled Notes. This will allow you to attach a note to that player ("Nice person, good teammate." Or "Pompous Build Nazi.") You can also assign a rank to that player, from one to five stars. This information is only visible to you, and is only stored on your computer. The rank and note are attached to the player's Global name, so you'll be able to see that information on any of their other characters you might happen to meet. This can make it useful for keeping track of people you like, but who aren't Global Friends. Or for keeping track of people you don't like, but don't want to actually /Ignore just yet. I believe you can set the stars to be visible all the time, or just on targeted or mouse-over. It won't allow you to see if they're online or not, but if you happen to be in the same place you'll be able to tell if you've met someone before and really liked/disliked them. (Again, I barely use this feature, but it is something to be aware of.) The notes can be useful for keeping track of *why* you don't like someone. For example, one player might be an offensive jerk, but a good team player. So you could leave a note that you don't mind teaming with him, as long as he's safely /Ignored.

One thing to note, if it hasn't been mentioned - in City of Heroes, instances normally scale to the size of your team. If you have a full eight player team, there will be huge groups of enemies. Enter the same mission by yourself, and the groups will be much smaller, and will probably be missing the more elite versions of the opposition. In WoW, instanced dungeons are "team only" content, and can't normally be done solo until long after you've leveled past the content. In CoH, there is very little of that sort of thing. Generally, the only reason you *must* have a team is if a specific Boss happens to be something your AT is weak against. (Bosses that like to chain holds can be a problem for ATs that have no resistance against that type of attack.)

This argument seems to be going in circles. On the one hand, we have people pointing out that Speed Boost provides some useful buffs. And this is true - it does have useful properties. It also provides a huge boost in movement speed, which can be problematic for characters who aren't Stone Armor. On the other hand, we have a group of people pointing out a number of features that make the power "not fun" for them, either to be the person casting it, or the person being hit with it. For these people, the "not fun" aspect outweighs any benefits the power provides. This is a game. It is played for fun. If a player finds something in a game to be "not fun," why do they have to provide any more justification than that?

Since you're asking for opinions, mine is that I hate Speed Boost. Totally, completely, and without reservation. I don't have a /kin, and if I ever made one it would be for the sole purpose of *not taking* Speed Boost. I build my characters to be self-sufficient. The Plus Recharge is irrelevant to me, because I don't generally need it. The +Recovery is also irrelevant, because if I'm playing a character that has endurance issues, I've already dealt with it via my own slotting.

The only thing Speed Boost adds to my characters is the ability to get killed, when even tapping a movement key causes me to lurch wildly about. If I'm on a team with a /kin that hits me with it more than once after I've asked to be skipped, then one of us will be exiting the mission in the next minute. (And if I have the star, I will kick a /kin that insists on Speed Boosting me.)