Steel_Shaman

1. I made a new Dark/Dark controller and got him to 34.
2. My Bane Spider went from 34 to 36.
3. My Stone/WP Brute went from 42 to 43.
4. Leveled my Dark/Dark Dom from 17 to 20.

All in all, a pretty festive weekend.

If I had to pay extra for pool customization I would do it, but I would be one very annoyed customer, as I would feel I was being ripped off. Pool powers should have been included in the original customization launch.

Given how often this is asked for and for how long, I'm truly at a loss as to why it hasn't been done yet.

1. My Dark/Dark Dom will get some lovin' for sure.
2. I may start up a Dark/Dark Controller. They're painful enough to level that getting one cranked up on DXP weekend might be a good idea.
3. I've also had a Brute idea knocking around in my head for a few days, so I may start him up as well.

Since my favorite character is my Warshade, I would have to say Issue 3.



Don't look at me like that, there are folks that like Khelds, you know.

While I do not agree with Johnny's stance on this one, I can certainly understand why he feels the way he does.

When the Incarnate content first started up, many of us asked for a solo/small team option. The amount of venom and ridicule that was then heaped upon us for daring to do so was some of the worst behavior I have ever seen on these boards. Now that the Devs have actually given us what we asked for, people are fussing about it being too easy for large teams.

It's pretty easy to see why Johnny feels the way he does. I can't really blame him. Do I agree with it? No, not really. Let the big teams have AV's if they want 'em, I don't really care. But I'd hardly call Johnny's reaction illogical or crazy. Kick a puppy enough and eventually he's going to bite you.

Well, well, looks like Premium players can post on the forums now.
So, my honest opinion on all this mess:

A lot of the things people are complaining about is a direct result of the Devs choosing to implement a standard MMO raid grind, and then implement standard MMO raid grind mechanics....in a super hero MMO.

As I've looked over the forums the last few days, I've seen all sorts of complaints about mechanics that, if I encountered them in any other game, I would simply accept them. But here? Not a chance.

When I raided in That Game Which Shall Remain Nameless, I was willing to accept that I needed to get a bunch of my friends together to beat down the Big Bad, because after all in the overall story of that game, my character was a relative nobody. It made sense that it took a bunch of nobodies to take down Mr Big Lore Character of the Week.

However in CoH, our characters are super heroes, people who have literally saved Paragon City and in some cases the world itself. They're big shots. So no, I'm not willing to accept the standard MMO raid conventions in a super hero MMO. It simply doesn't fit the genre all that well.

Now I know someone is probably going to pipe up and say "but wait! they have this kind of stuff in comics too!" And that's true. Occasionally Galactus gets the munchies and decides that Earth is looking mighty tasty today. But those story arcs are relatively rare and are not the meat and potatoes of the comics that showcase them.

For someone interested in getting their character to the absolute height of power the Incarnate system is their "meat and potatoes," it's the majority of the content they experience from one day to the next. To constantly reduce this hypothetical player to a faceless grunt in the middle of 24 other "heroes" is not telling a comic book story. Rarely are they allowed to really feel like this godlike hero they have supposedly become. The progression raid system Paragon has so foolishly decided to emulate prevents it by its very nature. Players have to go back to non-Incarnate content to have any opportunity to feel stronger at all.

As Chyll said upthread, challenge the players yes. But make the challenges appropriate for a super hero, both in terms of game mechanics and story. Getting pelted to death with rocks by ordinary humans is just bad writing that has no place in a super heroic story.

Hopefully Dark Astoria will change all that by allowing people to run content that lets them be the star again, instead of just Incarnate Cannon Fodder A98-B. I'm highly doubtful, but we'll see.

I don't think anyone is contesting that running constantly on large teams is some very fast leveling. That being said, this method bears the caveat of having to be on a large-"ish" team for it to work, which is not always feasible depending on an individual's playtime window.

To be honest, I don't really care how someone levels, as long as they're not exploiting. The fact still remains that the very lowest levels of CoH are absolutely miserable for certain AT's and builds. Whether it be endurance problems, too few powers for a decent attack chain, "key" powers that don't come until later (Controllers pre-pets, yuck) some builds are just not as fun as they could be in that range.

I think the real issue here should be not how people are leveling (as long as they aren't exploiting, of course), but why exactly they feel the way they do about that part of the game. If certain powersets and builds are widely regarded as not fun until a certain magic level, then perhaps the game would be better served by worrying about that instead?

Right now I still have a VIP account, but I'm thinking of letting it go Premium instead of renewing in a few weeks. That being said, there are some questions and I don't know if the answer is out there, so I thought I'd ask the forums and hopefully get an answer or a link to one.

My favorite character that I play more than any other is my Warshade. He is kitted out with a very expensive build and has the Alpha slot unlocked with an Alpha boost slotted (Alpha is as far as I've gotten with Incarnates on any character because I just can't stand the Trials, but that's an issue for another day. )

I know that for my Warshade to remain playable as Premium I would need to buy access to the Warshade AT and to the IO system. I'm actually fine with that. But my question is: what about the Alpha slot? I know that he will not have access to the Incarnate system, but would the mere fact the slot is unlocked cause the character to be unplayable without being VIP? Or would the slot just be rendered inactive and the character playable? I'd be fine with having to manually unslot the Alpha boost prior to going Premium, I just don't know if that will be enough to make the character playable.

I apologize if this has been answered elsewhere, but would appreciate any info anyone has, even if it is just a link to a FAQ I have overlooked.

Wait, let me get this straight.
They introduce a paid-for travel power, and using it completely shuts off ALL your other powers, even passives? That's hilarious. Count me as being very glad I didn't buy it, nor will I ever do so after learning this.

I haven't done the new Sewer Trial yet, and had no idea until this post that low level SO's actually drop from it. If the Devs are going to let us get SO drops in the low levels, might as well take the next logical step and just make them the standard for the entire game instead of level 22 on up. It would have the advantage of simplifying the system and making the lower levels less tedious for certain specs.

In regards to the enhancement inventory pricing, it's my personal opinion that no single item should cost more than the price of a monthly sub. The point stipend for VIP's does alleviate some of that concern for me, but I still find it a little off-putting there are individual items that actually cost more than a month's access to the game.

I agree the store interface is rather sluggish. I have a rather beefy system and was actually surprised at how long it takes the store to come up and the noticeable drag on my system when opening it.

I haven't played through all of Atlas yet, but Mercy is fantastic. I went through the extended tutorial arc and found it to be quite amusing. My only quibble with both the new Atlas and Mercy zones is that the mob respawn rate seems awfully high. Many times I would kill a spawn and pull the next, only to find the first spawn reappear right as the second one dropped. I imagine this was done in anticipation of a large influx of players when the game goes fully F2P, but it was still surprising.

They will have to nuke Liberty from orbit to get me off it.
That being said, I'm an incurable alt-aholic, so I may create some characters on Exalted to mess around with occasionally.