TrueMetal
-
Posts
1383 -
Joined
-
Quote:They still haven't.Originally Posted by tanstaafl
I'm not complaining that I have to play my character to get to 60.
I'm complaining that I have no choice other than to team to get to 60.
This is not something that City has ever done before - locked level progression behind teaming. -
I've been here for over 4 years now and I just want to say that this past 6 months have rekindled my love for the game. (I got a bit disinterested previous winter and spring) The new content (Praetoria, incarnate stuff and the new lvl20's arcs) is the best that's been released for this game. Every new powerset released is more fun and generally more balanced than the previous, the new enemy groups with their effects and animations are awesome and fun and every issue the QoL changes turn City of ... in a better game.
If you guys can continue in this vain, and keep to the promeses around communication you make here, I'll be here for a while yet.
-
Quote:Yea, he's busy with another YA novel as well, in a different setting than his Alcatraz series. Iirc it is going to be something steampunkish with a magic system involving chalk. It's called The Rithmatist and it's scheduled for 2012.Originally Posted by Oliin
Also in case you didn't know he's writing another book in the Mistborn world. It's set years after the end of the trilogy, has a different set of characters and is currently titled The Alloy of Law. I'm still holding out for his writing more books in the Elantris or Warbreaker worlds myself though. Yea sure they were stand-alones but such open ended ones.
You'd think for someone who's so prolific they'd be a bad writer, but not so much really.
Sanderson has mentioned that Elantris, while a standalone, is also the first in a trilogy of novels set in that world but not with the same main characters. And that Warbreaker will get a companion novel some unspecified time in the future. He also has plans for 2 more trilogies set in the Mistborn world and another 10ish book series once he's finished The Stormlight Archives.
I can only hope he actually manages all that.
Brandon Sanderson isn't a master with words like some authors are, his writing is more functional than anything else (You can clearly see him progressing if you read his novels in order of writing though). But when it comes to original and immaginative (and internally consistent) settings, magic systems and characters he's one of the best of the current generation of fantasy writers imo. -
For worldbuilding fans I'd recommend:
-The Mistborn triliogy by Brandon Sanderson.
Lots of original ideas in here.
It's set in a world where the hero prophecied to take down the "Dark Lord" failed. A 1000 years later a group of master thieves decides it would be fun to rob the dark god's treasury. Over the course of the three books the story evolves from there into something truly epic. The world is really well thought out and constructed. So is the story, with little things, seemingly insignificant at first, having a big impact in the later books. Also Allomancy is the most awesome magic system ever thought off. Mistborn (the strongest Allomancers) make ninjas seem like rheumatic cripples.
If you like Mistborn you can try:
-The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson.
Again a truly unique world by Sanderson with some awesome magic systems. This is Epic fantasy with a big E. It is the first book of a ten book series and it's just over a 1000 pages long. The second one is scheduled for late 2012 or early 2013 with the plan to release 2 books every 3 years after that. Yeah. That's a long while, but if there's one author who can stick to a schedule like that it's Sanderson. The guy's a writing machine. Since 2005 he published 12 books. (2 stand alone fantasies, Mistborn trilogy, 4 YA novels, Way of Kings and he's currently working on the last of the 3 Wheel of Time books he was contracted to finish.)
-I'm currently reading the Prince of Nothing trilogy by Scott R Bakker. Again a big epic with a vast and detailed world. It's quite dark and grim in tone. I find the use of language really good. Bakker has a degree in philosophy and it shows in the themes of the story and how they're handled. Also his characters tend to go on long philosophical introspections (which may or may not turn people off of the books). It's not light reading, but I'm liking it so far.
Other books I read this year and really enjoyed:
-I am NOT a serial killer by Dan Wells and its 2 sequels.
These books are supernatural thrillers. 15-year-old John Wayne Cleaver is obsessed with serial killers, he works in his family's morgue and he is a sociopath who recognises in himself all the psychological markers of a budding serial killer. Then a real serial killer strikes in town and a cat and mouse game between the two begins.
The way Dan Wells places you inside the head of a teenage sociopath is really uncanny. He makes you sympathise with John even while he deeply disturbs you. Even though the language is relatively simple, there's some really well written prose in these books. Technically they're YA novels, despite the darkness of the subject matter, but the quality of the writing makes it accessible for older readers as well. I read each novel in single sitting (300-350 pages). There's also a step by step description of the embalming process of the human body and tips on how to make a proper blazing fire. So it's educational too!
-The reapers are the angels by Alden Bell.
This is dystopian sci-fi about a young woman born into a world where society has been destroyed by a zombie apocalypse. The zombies only serve as a back drop for the story (and the word 'zombie' isn't actually used). The real story is about Temple, 16-years-old going on a hundred, and the people and things she encounters as she wanders what's left of the world. Since Temple was born after the apocalyptic event (we never get to know what exactly happened) she has a different outlook on the world than we would have, since this is all she knows. Despite the overall bleakness of the story, there are some truly beautifull scenes in here. The writing style took me a few pages to get into, but once I did it really grabbed me. -
Quote:I genuinely rolled my eyes when I read the word 'punished'. Read my post with that in mind. Not like the tone in your post was all that neutral.Originally Posted by Bloodspeaker
Leaving aside the (apparently intentional) tone of your response,
Apparently the devs disagree.Quote:Pulling him from the source of his "near invulnerability" was a perfectly valid tactic that ANY character could attempt,
I'm not getting into this again, so I'll just let it be.Quote:as opposed to A) knocking him into the lava, B) teleporting him there, or C) taking out each of his clones as they appear before he can fully regenerate. There are a great many toons that won't have access to A and B if they have the "wrong" powersets, and won't likely be able to manage C if they don't have either pets or sufficient damage.
Yea, and they'll also nerf accuracy, and make him a GM that scales down to AV.Quote:How long before they give him kb resistance and immunity to teleportation?
Jeez, the overreaction to this is absurd. Broken game mechanics are broken and need fixing. That's all there is to it.Quote:In both MMOs and in RPG campaigns (which I've run a lot of), there's a difference between trying to CHALLENGE the players, and trying to DEFEAT them. The former generally draws people TO a story, the latter drives people away. The one change smacks too thoroughly of the latter logic, to me. -
Quote:Did you tell the devs about this? They quite clearly indicate you should get a team for the Honoree mission.Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
Initially Cryptic and then later NCSoft/Paragon Studios. Don't like it? Then make your own MMO.
-
+rep. Lots of it.
-
Quote:How are you punished exactly? Did they take away any rewards you already earned? Where penalties aplied to your characters?Originally Posted by Bloodspeaker
I do so love being punished for sound tactical thinking.
Ok, you don't like it that they made your favoured tactic impossible, fair enough, but punished, really? -
The problem I have is that when you try to find something between the mass of unrated arcs you have to plow through a whole load of open farms, poorly concealed farms and "tests of skill" trash before you find something decent.
I want to play arcs from people who have never been rated before, but I don't always feel like dealing with all that garbage you know?
Maybe they can add 2 categories or something. One with story arcs, and one with "tests of skill" and such maps. -
More fun in game definitely. I don't run TFs differenly from how I always do them, but I have a lot less trouble convincing people to not skip half the fun.
-
Quote:I suggest to grant a guaranteed shard on the next kill everytime someone manages a thousand kills (or 500 or 2000 or whatever) without a drop.Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Well, one per two days in addition to those dropped seems interesting. However, I have sort of a problem with this: It means all people will play will be morality missions if they and they alone offer a better drop rate, and there really are only about 10 of those in the 40-50 range. Even if they're more, they're not that much more. Ideally, I'd like to see something somehow tied either to existing 45-50 story arcs, or otherwise tied to more general missions. Maybe a relatively high chance to drop a shard from mission complete? How about a chance based on kills inside the mission like you get Architect tickets?
Again, I don't know. -
Quote:I know, right? But apparently we've reached the point where even friendly advice is a reason to get insulted, so I'm out. Enjoy.Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
People and their opinions and experiences differ. Fact of life.
-
Quote:Yea, I thought so myself.Originally Posted by Ironik
These are acceptable.
Just like you I'm just stating my pov, while providing some counterbalance to all the "WAAAH! THIS IS TO HARD" crowd. I'm not saying one less way to defeat him is good. I'm saying that fixing exploits that break encounters is good.Quote:My question is, why do you insist that one less way to defeat him is a good thing?
I was perfectly fine with everyone pulling him outside the room, I even suggested it to some people who were having problems. But now that the devs have fixed it, I'm not shedding any tears about it either.
Personally? I wouldn't mind a bit (you mean temp pets right? Not powerset pets.) Notice the difference between "I wouldn't mind" and "Yea, the devs should totally do this!" The latter is not what I'm saying.Quote:Suppose next the Devs decide that using pets is a cheesy way to defeat him and gray out those powers? You still can team up and use inspirations, right? So that'd be fine.
For the life of me, I can't understand why you people are having so much trouble with this encounter. No I really don't.Quote:For the life of me, I can't understand why you people are being so unbelievably dense about this. -
Quote:Yea, and that's why I give the tip, that you can get the Curse Breaker temp.Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
Yes, because everyone is psychic and knows before the mission that Holtz is going to have the curse.
Again, NPCs Cheat. Holtz has the powers of a Colonel AND a VG Wizard all mashed into one and cranked up to EB level.
Was just trying to help, you know?
Jesus dude, dogpile a little harder will you. -
Quote:Reichsman cheats because you just can't break his regen without a MM to prevent him going Unstoppable, or a huge wad of dps/regen debuffs. Pulling doesn't change anything about that.Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
This is the reason people pull and all the usual tactics, in a nut shell.
AVs aren't tactical challenges, for the most part. They don't require clever thinking, or puzzle methods.
Their just a big sack of HP, regen and mez resistance with stupidly high accuracy and damage that cheat. The LRSF final mission made me unbelievably frustrated and angry when, even after getting your favourite pet, Shivans, and team stacking vengeance on them, we STILL died. Why? Guess what? The Phalanx cheat! Their all set at level 54, and theres 8 of them! How on earth is that a fair, tactical fight for eight villains limited to level 50? Why else do you think people prefer to Nuke them from orbit? Because, out of the whole SF, that one mission is a load of stinking doos.
My whole point is, that all those tactics are unnecessary. Because as you say, the AVs are just a big sack of HP. They aren't all that hard for a team. They're boring. That's why I find it fun to charge em while they have some help to spice things up a bit, eh? All you need is one (1) guy who can, buffed up by the team and 3 purples or 3 oranges, withstand an alpha strike (meaning every tanker/brute on SOs) and gather the AV agro. After that you just handle it like any other large mob. Heck I completed an ITF and a LRSF yesterday with 2 scrappers as tank.
I admit that charging the Phalanx isn't for every team though. But it IS very much doable for balanced teams with people who are on the ball, WITHOUT nukes or shivans. I find it a blast to do it that way. Beats the heck out of pulling them and plowing over them 1 or 2 at a time. Yey fun. I'm not saying I do it everytime without wiping, we wiped 3 times on the LRSF yesterday, but it is my preferred method.
Also, Shivans aren't my favourite pet. Hardly ever use em myself. I find them horribly OP. They trivialise every encounter and wouldn't mind if they were removed from the game, same for HVAS. Yea, I know good thing I'm not running this show, eh? -
Quote:Just want to point out, since a lot of people don't seem to know, that you can get a temp power of the vanguard crafting table that clears the Curse of Weariness. 50 V. meritsOriginally Posted by Twisted Toon
If you can survive the alpha from 25+ (the first time) Rikti. After the first attack, you'll easily end up with over 100 Rikti spawned in the area where the 4 portals are by the time you get back. With Honoree and Holtz right in the middle of them. Good luck clearing all the Rikti and the portals out with half your endurance and Honoree psychically and physically slapping you around.
-
Quote:Yes, please.Originally Posted by Zombie Man
Shall we make a list of all the other missions where pulling makes the encounter easier and handing that into the Devs so they can 'fix' that 'exploit'?
Edit: It just annoys me. I've been doing a lot of TF's the past weeks and there's always some 'uber awesome dude' who runs ahead of the team soloing spawns and whatnot. But then everytime we run into a great encounter (the Vindicators on LRSF, final room LGTF, platform in 3rd mission ITF) those same guys insist on pulling, totally breaking up the fun. Those encounters are great to charge in as a team fighting dozens of foes at once. You want to feel 'heroic' or 'epic' or whatever. Well charge in.
All the TFs I lead are run that way, most of the time PuGs on first come, first served principle, no special AT pruning. I never fail a TF.*
*Exception for Barracuda, since without a MM/defender OR a decent amount of debuffs Reichsy cheats. -
Quote:I'm well aware of that.Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
Wow, a helluva lot of people are gonna disagree with that one.
Like, potentially a lot of people playing certain ATs such as Blasters, Corrs, PBs, anything with range that still goes squish...
I play corruptors mainly. -
Quote:25% for the tier ones.Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
How many? I could see this working, I guess. Aren't reds, like, 7.5% damage buff, tough?
All I can say is that I've done it on low damage characters (on crappy IO/SO builds). Yes, some were a bit of a struggle. It was fun. and without Shivs or anything of the sort for what it's worth.Quote:This doesn't seem to work, as he summons them very fast, or at least was when I fought him.
You were maybe. Haven't heard a good counterargument except for 'I don't wanna'. Buy a backup radio temp off the market (or whatever it's called) That'll get you a boss, they help loads.Quote:So, "get a Shivan?" I thought we done with this.
The point is to do it WITH someone else, not have it done for you. But making stuff easier or dropping the mission does prove how incarnate worthy you are? It's a dumb argument anyway.Quote:If one is available, and again - how am I proving my strength to the Well if I simply have someone else do it for me? That's my biggest problem with the "get a team" suggestion,
Then do it another time, or be a social butterfly and reach out a little. Really this must be the poorest argument ever to balance content around.Quote:second only to "suppose there's no-one online that I WANT to team with?" -
Quote:I have. Did some 30 contact missions/tip missions set for x6 on a 2-4 man team. It's pretty much the same if you factor in the numbers of enemies killed. It's only slower in time because you kill less/time. My teammates got similar results.Originally Posted by BrandX
You say team on a TF.
I have to ask, have you done a team on a regular story arc to compare the shard drop rate?
Yes, yes it's not very scientific I know, but enough to convince me.
Yesterday I did a LRSF and an ITF back to back (clearing a path, without clearing the map, as I always run TFs) and I got a total of 5 shards.
So it's not always great on TFs either.
-
Quote:Yes, thank you!Originally Posted by BrandX
With this arguement, the whole game tells YOUR STORY.
The whole writing is setup as a one time, through story line.
Nothing in this game has me seeing a reason (storywise) why you'd run LGTF more than once, outside of the rewards.
Is Honoree and the Rikti going to try the same tactic OVER AND OVER AGAIN? o.O
And every story arc is startable solo.
It's not a TF.
And just like all those other story arcs, if you can't beat it solo, you get a teammate.
I have to ask, are you even trying to lower the difficulty to -1/1 when you solo it? Are you using inspirations?
I've soloed the cape mission with at +1 with an unslotted Sonic/Energy Defender, a Dark/Sonic Defender, a RAD/DP Defender, a Fire/MM Blaster and a few other squishies, all unslotted...while the Incarnate story arc is harder (as it should be), I find it hard to think that a slotted out (SOs) whatever couldn't do this arc at -1/1, for Trapdoor at the very least. Weakened Honoree I can't say, but even then, it says bring a team (and he's a weakened incarnate, so he should be tough). -
Quote:Yes, and that would be a great argument if this was a single player game.Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
That's a bad thing to make unsoloable, being that it's something that not only tells MY story, but is, in fact, startable solo. What I said in that unnecessary quote talked about team-only content in the form of TFs and Trials, things that require a minimum number of people to start to ensure that you can finish them. This is not one of those things.
-
Quote:Reds.Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Yes, forums, do kindly remember me, please.
Which of those options will help me outdamage the regeneration from his bifurcations?
Or kill his bifurcations.
Or any sort of summonable pets you can find all over the place.
Or a teammate. -
Quote:I think pulling is a lame and cheesy 'tactic' that should be countered by the devs as much as possible.Originally Posted by StormSurvivor
I think it kinda makes sense that he doesn't follow you. If I had that kind of power, I wouldn't willingly follow my enemies away from my source of regen. However, I can see what some people are getting at about restricting some strategies.
I think an alternative I'd like to see is having his clones somehow come with him; follow him into the hall or something, so you'd have to keep him on the move to flatten his regen. If that's the kind of strategy you want to use. -
Quote:Breakfrees, purples, a Jetpack helps with knockback.Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Or what? Quit? Pardon me if I don't warm up to this idea. How do you "toughen up" if your build does not have access to status effects or knockback?
All you people clamoring about options, sure know how to limit yourself.