ThePrisoner

Not sure if this is helpful or not, but I get the same behavior whenever I run CoX after I've run Photoshop. Haven't investigated WHY, exactly, since for me a reboot fixes it. Does this happen consistently for you every time you boot your comp? Do you have any background applets running?

The short version:

Why is CoX running my CPU at 90-100% resolution when rendering 3D scenes (i.e. not character creation, enh management, etc.)??

The long version:

I started religiously monitoring heat and CPU usage on all my machines in the last few weeks. On my main gaming desktop, I've got a proc that's a couple years old, but well within spec for CoX: AMD X2 5600+. Graphics card is nVidia GTX 280, well above spec.

When running the game, the GPU doesn't work too hard, but my poor CPU is pegged at ~100% the whole time. I've tried changing every option in graphics & audio settings, but nothing affects the CPU usage (not texture quality, not particle physics, not suppression, not bloom, not detail level, not draw distance, not screen resolution, not hardware v software sound playback, not... well, you get the picture.)

Whenever a 2D screen is displayed, though (e.g. managing enhancements, creating a character), CPU usage drops to about 40%. So there's something going on there that's related to the rendering pipeline... but WHAT IS IT, and how can I lower my CPU utilization when playing the game?

I'm happy to do a DxDiag dump, but not sure how that would help; I have no artifacts or really any GPU-related rendering or perf issues with the game. I just want to not be pegging my CPU at 100% for a six hour play session.

Note that I don't see the same problem running more GPU-intensive FPS style games (e.g. Fallout, Crysis, UT3, etc.), so it seems like something engine-specific.

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You're a bunch of dirty arc skippers

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Poor Grimz. OK, here's a review (I don't have a different arc to pimp yet -- thx for the review on the last one, Rowdy, good stuff):

Mission 1
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I don't really get what you mean by "real time history lesson, this is where you come in." Am I supposed to re-imagine the AE system as something else? Whatever... diving in!

After defending the converter (why? not sure, but that's the mission goal, so I DO IT!), a linked goal pops up: Himini Giblets. I guess that's a boss name, and I gotta go fight a boss now? Wish there were some exposition here. OK, kill more Freaks,
omw...

Yes, Himini Giblets is a Freakshow boss. He goes down quickly, and with him dies the dream that a Freak boss may name himself without a l33tsp34k reference to pop culture or electronics. Perhaps my contact will explain a bit more about his illustrious past...

Mission 2
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No, my contact says, "Really the Freakshow were hired to destroy a data stream converter? Maybe you should go raid another Crey lab." The logic eludes me, but it's spelled out AFTER I accept the mish. Alrighty.

"Sometimes a hero has to hit a guy with glasses." Nice line!

Okay, running through the base, clearing it out, come across a boss. Half way through kicking her [censored], I'm suddenly booted and mission failed. Hrm?? Saw two "interrogate" options, assumed I had a couple of boss fights to do? I sure missed something, wonder what it was. <shrug>

Mission 3
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"Surprisingly, opening the door didn't set off an alarm." I know, right? The things for which we suspend our disbelief. Two for three on "clever mission entry dialogs." That's a pretty good ratio!

Unintentionally humorous line of the night: the talking Fire Tarantula who says, "Don't ask me bro, I'm just here for the health insurance." Well, probably intentionally humorous, but wouldn't have made me crack a smile if it had came from a human NPC. Random mob spawn FTW!!1!

I like the exposition here... data transfer as a big Hero roach trap. Forget that villains are using AE too, it's a cool concept, run with it. This is where the arc starts to turn the corner from 3 stars towards 4 for me.

Boss fight... Grimz doesn't look like he's wearing Council standard-issue. Is this one of those "hey I put my toon in my story arc" story arcs? Hrmm. [censored]-kicking commences. At half or 1/4 health point (hard to tell, Grimz's health is dropping faster than the 2008 DJI) a HUGE ambush joins the party. I count five or six mobs, including two LT's. Seems big for diff level 3, but maybe I just got a weird roll. I pull it out, but not sure I'd count this as "solo-friendly." (Nor does it claim to be, afaik...)

Nice exposition dialog from the boss as he goes down swinging. Full props to the Achilles' -RES debuffs for that victory, btw, they really worked Grimz over on that one.

Mission 4
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Wow, small map and look who's standing just inside the door? Countess Crey!! OK, mercs, this is a stealth op. Come in quiet-like, kk? Good. And... here we go! No, no, ignore the Countess for now,just take out those four Crey tanks. Oh, six. What? Seven? Fine, we'll come back for the last two. Okay, Crey goes down and... not over. Must be a mob hiding out here somewhere... yes! C'mere you little Cryo Tank! OK, that does it. Virtual victory locked in.


Good length for the arc. Goldilocks and all that. Overall, I'm hovering between 3 & 4 stars... first couple of missions didn't start off on the right note, but I really like the roach motel concept, so let's call it 4. Nicely done.

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... which lets us bypass hours worth of "build-up" which we would normally have to slog through...


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Damn AE! Gets rid of the slogging part!? That's just wrong. If you don't eat your meat, you can't have any pudding. How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat!?

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First - my arc for peer review, #131158 - Dr. Sigler and the ChronoJumper. A story about the consequences of messing with forces you don't understand. No EB/AV, but challenging - mission 4 is the longest and most involved one. Mission 5 is shorter and easier to make up for it and wrap the story up a bit quicker. Now, on to the review.

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Entertaining arc, I enjoyed it! Good job with Dr. Sigler's Intro and Sendoff dialogs... the writing definitely conveys his rising sense of panic as things continue to spiral out of control. The conclusion was a nice payoff. (I was hoping things were heading in that direction! :-) Solid 4 stars from me.

Overall good map selection, especially the intro which is a refreshing change of scenery. Minor nit: I was bummed to be running the 2nd and 3rd missions on the same warehouse map... I get how it fits into the story, but seems like there might've been another way to intercept those canisters?

No EB's/AV's, but with the ambushes and crazy S/L resists, the regular bosses can stick around and probably give most toons a solid fight. (I tested with my Mercs/Pain Mastermind, and definitely spent several minutes to grinding down each of the Triad mages.)

Some specific notes I took as I went through the individual missions:

<ul type="square">[*]Mission 1 could use a hand-written info string for the defeat boss objective (just has the default bossname "RavenThorn"in the compass text)[*]Mission 4: too many false glowies for my taste. Don't get me wrong, I like false glowies in general, but it's a big map with lots of funky paths. Having all those distractor glowies really slows down the hunt at the end of the mission.[*]Mission 4: Typo on one of the boss names: "Destoryer" =&gt; "Destroyer". It's correct in the compass text, just not on the actual mob.[*]Mission 4: Group affiliation for the Mistresses of XXXX is listed in target window as "Mistress Patrol." [/list]
My arc: 214242, "Smuggler's Blues."

I know there are some funky issues with defendable objects (and mobs sometimes even get stuck inside 'em!), but I'd really appreciate some feedback on the arc overall, including difficulty level. I've only got a few solo-able alts to test with, and
tried to tune it to "challenging, but still very doable for strong solo builds." Did I succeed? Or is it a cakewalk/nightmare for you?

Yup, been waiting 12 hrs for toons to copy onto Test.

Here's a different take on Serum: I like it a lot for PvE. I have a Mercs/Pain MM in the 40's, with Serum 4-slotted (three rchg, 1 res). I'm running mission arcs on Challenge Level 3 or 4, and find Serum makes a HUGE difference in my ability to put down EB's @ the end of my missions... toss it to the Commando right before fight and let him take the alpha. He generally holds aggro for the remainder of the fight, and that's a ton of heals I don't need to throw, which also means a lot more attacks I can add to the mix.

Yes, there's a -end crash, but:
(1) If you're talking about tossing him purples/oranges instead of Serum, well, 1 blue ain't no thing then, is it?
(2) Painbringer pretty much makes that a non-issue for the /Pain build

Other than EBs, do I pop Serum often? No, not really. Not sure what I'd take in its place for more overall utility, though. Definitely not M-30. :-)

Right, I'm not talking about eating up existing patrol XP with debt... I'm talking about: no patrol XP on the bar, turn in mission to contact, get 30k Patrol XP. Nobody else has seen this?

Since Tuesday's patch, I notice I'm getting Patrol XP upon mission completion for a lot of my arc missions (playing red-side, on missions from contacts in Nerva and St. Martial).

For example, I just wrapped up the "Kidnap Akarist" mission for Johnny Sonata and got ~30k in Patrol XP in addition to the normal mission completion bonus.

I've only been back on CoX for about a month following a looong (3.5 yr) hiatus, so if this is how it's supposed to work then, well, nevermind. But I didn't see anything like that in the documentation or wikis.

Confirmed... and this can be a life-or-death kind of thing, depending on where you're running your missions. Some entry points have spawns (including GM's) camped near the entrances, so coming out without your stealth/defense/resist toggles up is a shortcut to the hospital.

NO KIDDING!! What the !@#$@ are the devs thinking? How can they take something that we've all grown accustomed to -- relied on, even -- and just yank it out of the MA experience without a care in the world!?!

The AE building is going to vacate faster than the lido deck on the Titanic after this patch. I mean, why would I ever run an MA arc again when the CHICKEN TUG ANIMATION HAS BEEN REMOVED FROM THE SYSTEM!?!

Seems to be working for me today...

Just chiming in with a hearty "me, too!" Happens on both AE maps and regular mission maps for my toons on Protector. I have about a 25% chance of map loading, 75% chance of "No mapserver connection, try again." But I can't try again, or do anything really except quit to desktop. (Quit to Login screen causes hang/crash.)