TheDeepBlue

I remember seeing my friends' screenshots of CoH for the first time.

I remember seeing a screen of a 5th Column base and thinking that it must feel a lot like being in Wolfenstein.

I remember seeing a screen of how some of my friends 'found this one crystal that deals damage and this other crystal that heals' inside a Circle of Thorns "base", and thinking that level must have been some part of a really awesome dungeon crawl.

I remember seeing a screen of some 'Devouring Earth' creature, how it looked really tall, and I wondered why they would want to beat up lawyers.

I remember seeing a screen of a bunch of defeated guys with jetpacks and thinking that they must be more 5th Column goons (because they looked a lot like stuff from The Rocketeer.)

I remember seeing a picture of this huge demon thing in what I could guess was a really high level zone, and thinking "I bet these zones are really big and detailed!"

I remember seeing a picture of Fatigue and LaserJesus fighting a "Circle of Thorns AV" in some sort of chapel, and thinking of how it must have been another part of a really cool, intricate and detailed dungeon crawl.

I remember actually reading the official CoH website and really liking the history.

I remember reading the Geography section and thinking that those were all the main zones there were, and that anything else would have just been like a seperate mission on its own.

...like when I read about Faultline on the official site, and thinking that Faultline would be a really cool "mission" to do.

I remember reading about Steel Canyon's skyscrapers and thinking that they would be so very big and massive, and how there would hardly be any figurative elbow room between them. I figured it would feel sort of like Gotham.

I remember reading about Skyway City and its bridges, and thinking that it was actually a network of terraces and highways constructed over the city, that you could easily cross between two parts of the city by going through Skyway, and that if you looked down over a bridge you could see the lights of the surface far below.

I remember thinking about how the Lost might actually be tied to cthonic beings from another dimension, and that a portal under the abandoned sewers would lead you to that place (this is my precognitive abilities telling me about the Shadow Shard. )

I remember hearing from a friend about how he took a ferry to Peregrine Island and got shot by a Crey Sniper. What I saw in my mind's eye is that he took a boat to an island inside a zone itself, where the massive Crey HQ was (housing the Countess herself, of course,) and got picked off by Metal Gear-esque snipers halfway there, all the way from the perimeter of the complex. This lead me to believe that a cloaked Blaster (like I would be) would be a necessity in actually reaching the island, sneaking past the security, and then beating up the snipers so that the rest of my party could make it safely.

I remember seeing Issue 1 previews, and thinking that the "Titans" would help the good guys.

I remember loading CoH for the first time and thinking about how totally sweet the experience was going to be.

I remember being horrified to discover that my newly-purchased video card still wasn't enough to run CoH.

I remember being horrified to discover, after purchasing the proper video card, that I didn't have a credit card to create an NCSoft account with.

I remember finally being able to make my Blaster after finding out that my debit card would work just as well.

I remember trying to be stealthy in the Outbreak door mission.

I remember being overwhelmed by the size of Atlas Park.

I remember being horrified at "finding a bug" in my very first mission, where I had completed it but hadn't found the clue inside, and my contact wouldn't talk to me until I found the clue.

I remember the sinking feeling I had upon entering Hell's Highway. It didn't help that Fatigue said, "Welcome to your first hell" upon entering Perez.

I remember being overwhelmed by the size of Perez Park.

I remember street-sweeping up and down Hell's Highway with a full team. I felt like someone in Mad Max.

I remember that I would always take the first shot on those mobs because I had the most powerful attack in that team with which to hit them, or something. (The attack was Energy Torrent.)

I remember running like a little girl from the Outcasts.

I remember thinking how totally awesome the 5th Column was, that they were so awesome I had to beat the living daylights out of them all.

I remember how incomparably awesome it was to fly.

I remember being overwhelmed by the size of Boomtown.

I remember how some time after that, all of the zones just seemed to get smaller and smaller. Once I came to terms with how every zone had its boundaries, the zones just felt clausterphobic all of a sudden. They kinda still do but I try not to pay attention any more.

Anyway, that's me.

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The worst thing about the Hess TF is that it pretty much embodies what a TF -should- be, instead of the 6 hour same old mission marathons the game has now.

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I agree. My Inv/SS alt is going to pretty much skip TFs on her run through the game unless my SG members want to team up or something for them. I don't want to grind through the marathon for hours just to do something I could spend that time doing the same thing without it.

In other news, I am all for livening up the non-Striga zones to be like Striga.

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Outside the Journal Commentary

Oh trust me, I know these things now. But in writing my experience, I want to portray things I learn in a "chronologically faithful" way. Later on, for example, I might grouse about how I can't get a certain badge because my scrapper can't fly, and a certain villain does nothing but fly. So my entries will not display my current knowledge, but instead recount what I knew, when I knew it, as I played. MM is at lvl 43 now, and UM is 23, but at the time of writing thus far, they're both about lvl 14.

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Ohhhhh.

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Hover is so incredibly boring, I ignore it totally.

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Oh sure, you say that now, but wait until some of the big boys later on come charging at you with a huge fist, claw, or scythe. Blasters often use hover to stay out of an opponent's melee range.

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I never can hit spit when I activate it anyway. I know nothing about coding, but in my suspicious mind, I suspect the accuracy penalty from Flight has also somehow crept over into Hover, and my mind is tainted against it permanently.

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I have no clue how to slot properly. My blaster has one enhancement of each in his Power Blast, one accuracy, one endurance reduction, one recharge, one damage, and one range extension. I'm still ignorant about how much enhancements will really matter in the game, but this ignorance doesn't seem to hold me back any.

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Mmm, these two statements might have something to do with one another. Blasters these days typically slot all of their attacks with one ACC enhancement and fill out the rest with DMG enhancements (or all DMG, if they're a */Devices Blaster with Targeting Drone like myself.) You will really start to be able to tell the difference once you start slotting with SOs. My Sniper Blast on my Eng/Dev can consistently one-shot a minion of even level, six-slotted with one ACC SO and five DMG SOs (or even a +1 minion if they have enough negative resistance to energy damage) or two-shot them with a Power Bolt/Power Blast combo with both attacks slotted the same way.

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Also, I tend to think how much it would suck if a villain could fly and I couldn't reach him

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Two words: Lead Shockers. And that's just the start.

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I've got no Stamina or Hasten on this character either, but I've got energy attacks galore, and I never seem to need to stop in the middle of a battle.

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This is probably due to the End Reduction and Recharge enhancements in all of your powers. Just a tip based on personal experience, though: The faster you take out villains, the less damage they get to do to you.

You can build your character any way you want, I'm just sayin'.

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Naturally, there are some who will criticize when we don't adhere to even that rough guess.



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ZOMG STATESMAN!11 HOW DAR YOU NOT BE ABLE TO PREDICT TEH FUTARE!!1one TEH DEVS NO EVERYTIHNG!!!

</sarcasm>

So, like, if I don't want my named bosses to be LTs, will I have to set the difficulty to Tenacious after the patch, or whatever the devs are planning?

If I do that, will the villains be +1 and +2 in my missions, or still +0 and +1? Hopefully the latter. My Eng/Dev can still handle most singular bosses on his own, most of the time, or two at seperate points in the mission (if I play my inspirations right and they're the right kind of bosses,) or even three if circumstances are lucky.

Two bosses simultaneously 25+ would probably wreck him, though.

Will named LTs-that-were-once-bosses still give you badge credit if they would give you any credit at all (ex: Fake Nems) when defeated in their LT form?

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I'll check this!

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Some people are unable to read between the lines. When Indigo told me that the Malta were going to be guarding a hideout with some "pretty heavy firepower" I knew there were going to be multiple Zeus Class Titans in the mission in addition to the named boss.

(Just didn't know there were going to be seven of the things! )

Some people also don't take their contacts seriously when they say "bring a friend" or "bring as many people as you can," things like that.

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Please, raise single target damage and/or lower single target endurance across the board. Single Target Blasters (Energy, Electric, Ice) and Scrappers (MA, DM) are dwarfed by their AoE counterparts, and many of the AoE sets have single target attacks (Flares, Barb Swipe) that are skipped due to their massive DPS and DPE inefficiency (sometimes compounded by animation length imbalance), so please don't leave them out.

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On another note, how does this solve the AoE power problem?

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The problem the devs are trying to address is all about accuracy.

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Yes, because otherwise SR scrappers would be too powerful.

</sarcasm>

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I've tried out the increased HP mobs on test and have come to this conclusion: Increased mob HP doesn't make the fight harder, it only makes the fight longer.

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False. No matter which way you slice it, a longer fight means using more endurance and giving the enemy more opportunity to damage you. That makes the fight harder.

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then why are they selling speakers in brickstown? listen to some of the freakshow dialogue. they take their role in the paragon black market.

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The Freakshow Goal is Ego, not Money. They're just selling speakers to show that they stole them. Punks.

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Another thing about fallen heroes is that they always get like 10 times as strong the moment they become evil.(ex: Parallax)

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The power increase is illusionary. Once free of the burdening restriction of morality, honor and justice they once had, heroes (now villians) pretty much do whatever they darn well please, however they want to do it.

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Power

A natural. What villain doesn't want to be all-powerful? Linking it with Magic seems bogus though. There are many, many means to achieving personal power (as opposed to personal influence) in a superhero universe.

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I think the reason it seems "bogus" is because Power is much too broad a term to use for a Goal. This Goal needs to have a more specific name instead...


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Chaos

Seems too narrow. As stated above, I think it should be broadened into Destruction.

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They're the same thing.

Well, that's not entirely true. Chaos does not necessarily imply destruction, only change, which is why it is associated with Mutation.

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Ego
Overlaps way way too much with Power. Junk it.

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You're trying to compare the Freakshow to the Banished Pantheon?

Power villians pump themselves to show others how powerful they are. Ego villians pump themselves to show themselves how powerful they are. Similar results, but the root of the Goal is different.

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Then again, robots do not want money more than anyone else.

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See: Domination.

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At least you didn't try to solo him...

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FYI, Vagabond speaks from personal experience.