Stonedrake

I'm pretty good with end management on scrappers/blasters/controllers. My defenders have no issues so long as somebody is getting hurt.

My tankers really have to watch their end. If the mobs only have 1 damage type, I can reduce the toggles, which helps, but my impression continues to be that my tankers are more of a struggle end-wise.

Another lowbie tank issue, I think, is that when GDN/ED came out, DEF and RES enhancements were reduced in effectiveness, and the powers they enhance were reduced as well. As a result, slotting DEF / RES low has little discernable effect. Current I slot end reduc, or End/DEF IOs, but I really think they need to fix low end enhancements so new players can notice more of an effect. The SO at L1 suggestion would fit.

Nope.

I don't think I've gotten a legit one. I believe ages ago I sent a legit one as I had to much for a /tell to work.
Now, I see that annoying red lettering, pop it open, delete or spam down the list, close it. Probably would miss any legit emails.
I want an "Email Off" option...

I'm not much of a marketer, don't try to be.
However, it's something I can do in the odds and ends of time, or when wrapping up. I can do it for 5 min or 15.

One of my peculiarities is I don't hand inf from one toon to another, I make them each "earn" their own, but I view marketing as "earning" so a toon can get enough inf to afford what they want. 2-3 million is the first breakpoint where I stop. 12mil the next, then 30- at which time I can meet whatever modest requirements the toon has. However over time some accumulate more funds. I noted the other day that I have a Lvl 12 with ~50mil, and I haven't a clue what that toon needs it for since I almost never play her.

So..it's there. It's easy and can be broken into whatever time blocks suit my schedule. I can do it daily or bi-weekly or whatever. Lastly, it has the reward of being able to easily equip my toons without having to scrounge and run to Freedom Corps to get the best prices on my TOs.

I've only done it once, rarely on long enough to run a TF, and generally play 11pm-midnight anyhow.

We slogged through it on invincible, didn't know what we were doing. Ice tank, 2 scrappers, 2 khelds, Emp, Kin, 2 blasters. Took a quite a while but was a nice challenge. That big EB spawn got us the first try, but we pulled through the second after a real brawl and marched up the canyon. I'd be willing to do it again as it was interesting and a challenge, though not really interested in speeding through it.

Looking at InfameousBrad's comments, #6, the high level guys with swords bit made me wonder too. Just seems off. Perhaps if they had cast them as the troops guarding the halls of the gods or something, but those aren't standard legionaires.
As for #4, I wish there were more Lt's with debuff and mez resistance, they nicely complicate things.
As for #5, when the Ice tank wasn't there, my Claw/Regen tried "tanking"...ow they hit hard. Basically ran in circles and hit em with shockwave to keep aggro...it worked and kept folks standing.

Really do wish the costumes unlocked for the account.

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I can understand the mindset of wanting to always dress females in "realistic" Batman-esque clothing because let's face it not many superheroines IRL would likely fight crime in 5 inch stilettos even if they could.

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Hmmm, my Agent Wildkatze is guilty of just that in her base costume. The suit covers head to toe, but has stilettos. I vaguely recall debating about it for half a second and deciding she's just that agile she can do it. As a comparison, my tankers I don't expect to be that agile, and have flat soles.

As an aside, in the Watchman movie, Silk had stilettos...except for the hallway fight, where she suddenly didn't.

I started with male toons, found I spent much of my time in 3rd person, and now run mostly female toons. In general, practical considerations do not enter into my costume choices. What I think looks good does. While I have my catgirls and schoolgirls and scantily clad vixens, I also have a fair number of high % coverage suits. If the toon conceptually is young, or airheadeded or otherwise not meant to be taken seriously, they tend to show more skin....though admittedly full coverage spandex doesn't hide much in comparison.

As for comic book costumes, I always presumed a lineage to sports figures 'back when'. Old time boxers, and particularly wrestlers then and now. The point of the costume is to make you uniquely identifiable as a symbol, while masking your true identity. Back then no clothing was bulletproof anyhow, etc.

For the purposes of the game, I presume the toons are inherently extremely tough (heck, hellions hit us with bullets, knives and fire, skulls use dark forces...kevlar ain't cutting it) and the problem is finding clothing that can stand up to the wide spectrum of threats...which is apparently very expensive, clingy and easier to produce in small batches.

I do enjoy TFs, but that is largely because I am doing them for the first time. Some are still just bleh, lots of "more of the same" missions.

A group of friends made a Monday night team of unplanned composition and are working our way through them. Generally we took them while we still got XP, and generally we do them on invincible, which slows us a ton since we have no debuffers and minimal buffage. Support is an Emp/Arch who tends our blasters health.

We long ago hit 50, and have been working through the Shadow shard TFs with an extra defender. It's a challenge, at least with this team mix on that setting. Finished Dr. Q the day before they upped the rewards . Just did Fathrim the Kind's and it took a couple of tries before I came up with a tactic for the final AV. Afterwards I peeked online to see how others had handled it.

Repeat them? Some maybe, but I have no great interest in speeding through them, merely play them *better* with better teams and higher speed. Or try them on relentless to see how much easier it is.

edit : As for the ITF, we didn't know what we were doing, slogged through the entire thing on invince, including that canyon. Was a bit of a challenge. Might be interested in trying Rom in some other manner.

Conceptually, I like gauntlet better than taunt, simply because if I'm hitting you, or your buddy, that should make you pay attention. It works fine in teams, but I also take taunt because the ranged AOE aspect gives me more options.

Things I'd like to see in addition to simple gauntlet
a) If you hit something not targeting you, you do more damage.
Rationale : Helps second tanks, gives a better storyline reason for mobs to suddenly really want to target the tank, and can boost tanks alpha while soloing.

b) -level/10 damage from each incoming attack.
Rationale : I really dislike seeing -1s floating over my head. Just for theme, I'd like there to be some level of damage I am flat out immune to. Perhaps -level/5 for Invince.

c) Perhaps take a page from brutes and doms. Have gauntlet applications serve to slowly recharge a "Fiery Embrace" style +dam 20sec button. I don't expect it would effect team damage substantially, but might be a nice bonus solo.

I have many toons with cat-themed costumes, none of which are built to look like, or act like, a Japanese catgirl. The exception being one costume Agent Wildkatze has, because a friend was joking about how she should... so I made a cat-schoolgirl costume for her. Her "brother" Madcat lacks any cat features beyond the claws, as sticking ears and tails on costumes does seem to be something I reserve for female toons....that and "Madcat" wasn't supposed to be the name, "Badger" was, but was taken... so cat features didn't fit that concept. Firey Tiger version I,II,III,IV don't have that issue, nor does Quick Kitty, or Agent Wildkatze, or...

The only time I've done it was my 'friends' team, and it took forever. We have usually have no debuff and little buff, and play on invincible, so these things take forever Makes me envious of such short times !

Signature mobs should be AVs, if not AV+. EBs are too weak.

While I mostly solo, so it would inconvieniance me, having some signature AVs be set at AV, and not scale down would be fine. I'd rather get help to beat Ghost Widow than turn her into an EB and claim "victory" solo.

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An interesting point.

World of Warcraft, 5 regular mobs (or 2 elite mobs) can completely overshadow the mighty adventurers who have, if they've been raiding since classic.. Slain 4 green dragons, 1 Blue Dragon, ...

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Off topic, but my comparison point is old EQ, but similar concepts. Mobs which once took a whole raid group, as I recall with a 6 cleric rotation to ensure complete heals landing every 2 seconds- in case a fizzle meant one missed..and it was dubious if the main tank could last 4 seconds if the mob did a quad hit. Toss in that healing..or sitting..or being badly hurt all caused aggro. That mob can now be soloed, if anyone would bother. While brand new expansions feature base mobs that challenge the players.

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and gets the Psychic Clockwork King mission. I explain that our Tanker is going to have a hard time with that. Leader listens, but Tanker shouts me down. You can guess what happened from there. Go ahead, guess.

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Doesn't sound good I've tanked that thing on my Fire tank and my Regen scrapper (I like big oranges), you don't *have* to have minerals...but I don't think that Granite knew what they were in for.

Vet rewards and 50s are not necessarily signs of good players. However, they are better indications than nothing, particularly the former.

I've been on several bad teams...several of them consisting of friends... but one which stands out was 2 scrappers and 6 blasters, with a mix of SKs, vs. Tsoo. One scrapper liked to SS ahead, or to one side, and scout..and die. One blaster was sk'd and would wander off and hide or die. Alot of fights consisted of 5 mezzed blasters and 1 scrapper desperately trying to survive. We had a couple quit and I stayed out of morbid curiosity. I believe the last mission just hosed us.

non-alcoholic: ...coffee followed by coffee...more coffee and occaisional tea. Water rarely appears.

I really haven't played a ton of Tank types very far. I liked my Fire /Axe. 5th(?) toon I made, back in I2 I think.

I took it thinking the Axe would mitigate, found I didn't need mitigation (then). Stopped playing her during I4 because I dislike burn herding, suffered in Burn changes and ED, but I stuck with it. Found Axe did offer some mitigation.

I'm still miffed over many...most... of the changes, as even the recent improvements to fire haven't been to my taste.... but none of the others have caught my fancy as much.

My Granite is the next highest, then Ice. I don't claim Fire/Axe is a great combo, end sucked for one, but Fire looks good to me, and I like Axe's feel in combat.

Ages and Ages ago.. they went and changed Axe from KB to KD in most attacks, which made my life much easier. However that was a set wide issue.

The thing about Handclap..or Tremor..or Shockwave is there are enough other powers in the set that you don't have to take it if you dont' want to. Granted, in the case of Shockwave it's the T9 and probably shouldn't be optional, in which case make it the T8 and give claws something even more wonderous The multiple options suggested above is also good.

However, my Claw scrappers will keep their shockwave as I can do really fun things with it...and if you start at the right distance you can knock outlier mobs to the tank or anchor with it.

Now, about those @#$@ energy blasters 8p

1. Blackwand/Nemisis staff
2. Sands of Mu / Ghost-slaying Axe
3. Base porter.
4. travel at 6 will likely go here. Maybe at #3. Just got 60 month, and haven't actually used it yet.
5. costume bits
6. tailor tickets
7. Team port
8. Base bits
9. other

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Why do you want players to run your arc?

If it's for feedback, the allow me to offer a suggestion: Form a team. Create team in AE (make sure everyone knows you are not running a farm :P) and run your mission arc. In the last mission announce to the team this was your arc and you would appreciate any feedback about the story, etc.

If you want people to run your arc so you can get more tickets...I haz no idear.

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Actually I had this kinda idealistic concept of 'hey cool, I can make things for others to enjoy' and I expected they would do the same. We'd get lots of interesting and variable stories that wouldn't be another just another council mission. I didn’t follow the development, didn’t know about HOF or Dev Choice, or getting awarded tickets.

Additionally, I looked forward to the ability to do challenge arcs as well as sub-challenge arcs. Some of the ideas I had for challenges just don’t work in the I14 MA. The others I haven’t bothered with. By sub-challenge I mean I’ve always had defenders/trollers built for teams, and are lousy soloers, so I’d like some easier mission setting for them. Blues. That’s one arc that gets play, gets rated 4s, which is just fine.

I've started 4, finished 3, tested & posted 2. Hard only 1 get any play. It was at 4 stars, immediately after the post I14 patch it got negative comments, so I yanked it. I eventually retested, changed the map, reposted...now two x 4 stars again.

I figure I will go back and add tags to see if I can get more plays, maybe finish testing and post the 3rd, but otherwise waiting for I15.

My thanks for your brothers service,
My sorrow for his loss.

I used to play EQ, way back at the beginning. Our groups would work to pull a single +1 orc and beat it down. Adds needed to be mezzed or taken to one side and rooted. By no means did you feel super.

The game was grinding, challenging, boring, satisfying, and neat all at once. There is considerable nostalgia there. However, EQ [u]was not[u] super.

To me, coming to COH, one of the big 'super' things is wading through large spawns of +0* or more foes. I don't really care that they are cannon fodder- they are "my level" and I can take on lots. The LT's and Bosses serve to introduce little spikes of difficulty and "danger." Overall, I like to run on Unyielding, as the added level of Invince adds little difficulty, but I like the larger spawns of Unyield.

*for some reason, blues/greens/greys don't cut it, whites are tolerable, though weak.

Was soloing this intermiable mission arc with Carnies and occaisional Malta / KOV on my tank last week and didn't notice anything different except I wound up wondering if sappers dont' take as much End as they used to. Or at least I was getting hit and still had substantial end left, while I could swear they used to take 90%+. As a Fire tank, they always friggin hit, so it's important to spot em and get choke out, but if there are multiples..argh. Anyhow could just be perception.

My blasters always have to go quite slow against them.

Malta/Carnies/KoA are nice challenges. I don't like the 'cheap tricks' of the Sappers or the annoyance of caltrop spam, so their missions wear thin quickly. Carnies, I don't like playing melee in team against. Run in to cluster, attack once, start to run out, blasters AOE ...ta da... I have no end. Argh.

While I would comment to inform the author, it would be intended as helpful. I don't think I would downgrade the arc unless it was so bad as to effect playability and obvious not in 'character'.

Well last night I went back to tinkering with the MA. I looked at my one arc has been starred, with 10+plays and 6 bothered to rate it.

It's meant to be lowbie troller/defender soloable. It deliberately skipped mez protections and ranged attacks, 2 allies to help and was mostly minions, 1 "boss" LT to beat at the end. You could pull enough minions to get in trouble, but overall, quite doable. Pre patch adding ranged attacks it had been rated 5,4,4,4... post patch 1, 1 (best as I can figure). with a complaint that it was fun but not soloable... So I've pulled it.

Just very annoying and discouraging. It does not make me want to put time and effort into building and testing more missions for another couple weeks until I'm sure they won't pull any more big changes.

Well the rating system doesn't seem to be working terribly well.

I kinda like the thumbs up/down, abstain idea floated, it might work, but you wind up with a great deal of range there.

I think the rating could be improved by several steps
A) Holding off showing stars until after 5-10 ratings. That way an early 1 or 5 star doesn't doom/reward things.

B) Post a list on the rating page of a sample of what the stars are supposed to mean- do you start at 5 and work down? Is 3 "average"? 2 "shows promise, techical issues" so folks are on the same page.

C) You will get variability. Perhaps throwing out the top and bottom 10%..or even 20% of ratings, so that just 8 or 6 of the first 10 count might be useful.

The alterations to the custom critter power lists, and the addition of ranged attacks at standard was frustrating. I had one nice little mission for lowbies and had nearly finished two arcs.

Right after the patch I got a comment the lowbie arc was not suitable for solo. It *had* been. That was the point.

So I now need to go back and retest and redesign some things. However I'm reluctant to do so until they get their adjustments out of their system. So for a little bit I'm not really using the MA, though I plan to.