UnicyclePeon

Not only is there the Mac bug with the market, but I hit a massive bug on my Mac in the f2p where allkcating a global character token crashed my beta client and corrupted it to where even after a repair it wont play. No idea if it is a mac only issue but ... Woof. Are they really ready?

Lewis

If they put a cap and diminishing returns on it, the effect on me is that I will run a few then go do an ITF or work on my daily hero tips.

My style is the exact opposite of the OP. Sorry if that makes me unfit for playing in the correct way.

I am cool with new stuff from time to time, but what I really love is repetition. Even since this game was new, nothing made me happier than finding one of those large warehouses that take up a COH city block. Because I would throw on some music, get a soda and a large bag of chips, and literally go around the warehouse from spawn to spawn for 2 to 5 hours. Humming, blasting, singing, kicking, killing freak after freak after crey after crey until I am forced to move on due to level increase. But these stupid door missions? Screw that. I have to like, travel. And click on a door or some crap.

So then they made outdoor xp kinda suck but they had scanner missions and loot and drops and whatnot eventually. So I gravitated towards whatever would let me kill stuff over and over without going anywhere. So you learn which scanner missions are easy to repeat, or you find a good real mission with a big map so as to have to mission reset less often. Then you just kill 95 of 100, leave the last 5, reset, repeat. Where are my chips?

This may seem like hell to you, but to me it is Heaven.

Then came the AE. And I am not even talking about farm maps or exploits in the AE. I love it simply because I can find a mission I like, just a simple mission, and do it over and over. So fun! I dont even have to go sell recipes. Just crank my tunes, kick back, and crunch through some bad guys. Occasionally I have to deal with ticket rolls, but I mostly get crap, so it doesnt take time.

Enter the incarnates. The lambda is tedious. Floating around those stupid basements and chasing that cowardly AV. I hear keyes is bad so I havent tried. But the BAF while tedious in ways (ugh, those were my warning rings?) it is fairly straightforward. I have even been on a full team that LOST it 4 times in a row due to escapees. But still. Its simple. Kill bad guys. Minimal tedium. Win or lose. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Did I just say repeat? I think I am in Heaven again.

So by all means, I will stand there in one spot doing the BAF over and over on the same team for 2 hours if I am in the mood. Or 5 hours. And there are already diminishing returns (only 1 empyrean per 20 hours). But even if you complain and get the devs all up in punishment mode (bad boy! you arent having the right kind of fun!) and they have diminishing returns on astrals (unlock your auras now boys before the OP gets his way) I would still prefer to repeat the BAF. I already repeat the ITF for fun even when stuck with diminishing merits.

So I LIKE running the BAF over and over, thank you very much. Why dont you make some connections with a supergroup or find your server global channel? On my server (pinnacle) those guys are always lining up different missions. Why not find people who want to play your way? Why make other people suffer until all the options that differ from your preferences are made too tedious to tolerate?

Best wishes,

Lewis

Just joshing, Local.

Lewis

Mind/kin has pretty good synergy actually, in that transference, transfusion, and fulcrum shift do not break the sleep or the fear effects that form the bread and butter of mind control's mez powers. And therefore you can sleep the bad guys, or fear them, then run in and self-Buff, and then rip them up with your solid single target attack chain. Local Man doesnt like control sets where you cant throw around AOE damage like a boss, but its a great combo. You should try it in a duo or trio of mind/kins. Also, with enough recharge globally, you can get mass confusion perma and even non perma, aoe confuse works great with a kin. And with enough recharge you can do mass hypnosis to get containment for terrify damage then shortly throw mass hypnosis down again, then a fissure, rinse repeat.

So mind/kin has great synergy simply due to self safe buffing for its single target attack chain and its rapidly available damage-sensitive mez powers. Monkeys in a barrel, with you in the barrel, killing one monkey at a time ... but at the damage cap.

As for earth/kin, it has great synergy, especially while leveling up and in the endgame if you use the stone epic. At all levels, the defense debuffs in earth control powers makes the accuracy checks for kinetics much easier. Even if you hang back, youll more easily land your kin powers over and over to help your melee buddies. Earth control makes kinetics easier to play. At epic levels if you take stone, you have 2 melee attacks and a smashing/lethal shield. Mine is permahasten with s/l softcapping and she is a melee monster.

Synergy, indeed.

Lewis

You must mean "soonest" because "best" would mean my Ill/Storm already had a set slotted.

Yeah, I know. Expressions and turns of phrase etc.

Thanks Amy!

Lewis

Hockeytown,

If you are returning after a few years, you may not know about Hero Tips and Villain Tips. When defeating level 20 or higher foes, you will get tips that the foes drop that unlock new missions as part of the alignment system. You can do 5 tips a day basically, and if you collect 10 successful tip missions of pure Hero or pure Villain status, you can get an 11th tip which is a morality tip for your alignment.

The first time you do the morality mission, you get access to a special base. For heroes it is Fort Trident in Atlas Park. After you unlock access to fort trident, in future you can continue doing 10 hero tips every 2 days, but now when you do your 11th morality mission on every second day, you earn a brand new type of merit called a Hero Merit (or a Villain merit for bad guys). These Hero Merits can be spent in Fort Trident to buy any non-Purple recipe from a bin/basket/box youll find in the fort. Even the most expensive recipes only cost 2 hero merits at most.

So if you actually like to play your fire/kin in real missions, you can do tip missions and every 4 days you can generate 2 hero merits and buy any single recipe that you like, without having to buy it on the market. Over time you can really trick out your favorite character "on the cheap".

So dont be too put off by expensive recipes other than purple recipes. The only down side is that whike fire/kins can be strong in some specific types of missions, in most content they can be a bit uneven, and they can find the new tip missions to be challenging. Bring your "A"-game. Or at least your "B+" game.

Lewis

Is it known whether these will drop at all levels, or if they drop just like purples? Or are they store-bought? I noticed the text about them scaling and I had seen that mentioned for the scaling store-bought ones.

Anyway, having a high recharge global bonus which is a different numeric value (different from the other global recharge values) will be nice since if you already have five purple sets you can get another 8.75% in.

Lewis

MD,

Hmm. That's a good point. On the other hand, if my friend buys the most minimal version of the game, he won't have those either, so he wont have to get used to less I guess.

If he gets the $9.99 version, will he not have access to the former villain ATs?

Hmm. Well, I await more replies and clarifications.

If it were me, I would just buy the $30 box, look at it as a one time fee and not look closely at what I may lose, and just have my kid make something I know he wouldnt lose access to and then make sure the kid doesnt do any side-switching or market stuff, and then whatever I lose, I lose.

But it still may make more sense, just from a heartache/bitter/but-I-paid-for-that perspective, to get the cheap version and let fate take its course. My friend is more likely to be irritated by what he loses access to than I am. No offense meant, buddy, when you read this. Different strokes and all that.



Adeon,

Hmm. Well I think in in terms of keeping it simple, we should just decide between the Basic, GVE or GR, simply because I dont know if the AE or Mac versions are even available from the NCSoft store (which is where the purchase is most likely to happen).

Anybody else have any opinions or insights into what might be the best bang for the buck in terms of feature availability, feature loss, and heartache?

Thanks,

Lewis

All,

I have a friend who wants to get his son into COH using a free account (my friend is a VIP himself) so they can play together. He wants to buy a copy of the game today or this week.

We are wondering what the best purchase would be to make?

COH for $9.99? COH GVE for $19.99? Or Going Rogue for $29.99?

The reason we ask is because the Side-By-Side comparison page (Free vs Premium vs VIP) and some other threads I've read make it seem like we could buy GVE or Going Rogue and then possibly lose access to some of those features his kid had for a month or so, once he drops back from VIP to Premium.

I've seen some people say "you never lose what you buy" and even from some devs, but I know for a fact that he will lose access to Masterminds and Controllers, and I think he would lose access to side-switching also after having already had it, since the comparison chart says that Side-switching is purchasable for Premiums.

So basically, what does the smart money say that my friend should buy TODAY for his son, given that as soon as the game lets him drop to Premium, he will certainly lose some features? COH? GVE? or Going Rogue?

What will cause the least heartache in terms of lost access that the kid had grown attached to? Or alternatively, which purchase is the efficiency "must have" even with a little heartache, considering the stuff it does leave you access to?

Thanks for your help.

Lewis

Plants are strong and tough. Its that hardy plant cell wall action.

Lewis

I really like the Anime/Mad Science look of the beams. They did seem to do pretty wimpy damage tho. Of course, I was playing a corruptor. But still, took my level 50 beam/traps forever to kill stuff.

Enan,

It varies. If my friends are on, which they are about 50% of the time, we play on huge 8 man teams. The other 50% of the time is split evenly between solo and 3-boxing missions for xp and/or Purple recipes.

So I guess I truly solo 25% of the time, and I am on large teams half the time.

However, my opinion is further skewed by the fact that one of my friends pays for 8 accounts and he has these crazy teams with 3 bubblers, 2 rads, 2 stormies (all controllers or defenders) and a driver (usually a blaster or a tanker). He drops to make room for the 3 others (me, and 2 others). But as we also favor various controllers, we usually have these insane softcapped teams with tons of automatic damage or heavy controls or other special powers.

We sometimes have a kin for fulcrum shift but rarely are the other aspects of the set even used.

Not a common situation, I admit.

Lewis

Kin is my second least preferred secondary to have as a teammate (sonic being least). But that may not speak to it being best or worst for large teams. It speaks more to my lack of willingness to alter my behavior based on the presence of the kin wielder.

Lewis

Gravity does have some movement slow which I guess with will stack with Time. But otherwise, no special synergy. I do think there will be some interesting tactics. If you stand around a corner and set down the location based slow/chance-for-hold field to protect/block the corner, you can wormhole bad guys near you against the wall. Your point blank -tohit toggle will be affecting those guys after wormhole's stun wears off. Also anybody you missed that aggros has to run through the slow field and into your -tohit field.

I think the most interesting combos will be Fire/Time and Illusion/Time. The melee-range hot feet with point blank -tohit toggle, pbaoe heal/hot, and other longer recharge pbaoe effects will be super complimentary. With enough recharge, that -resist debuff can be made perma. Illusion rocks with anything, and Time will fill out some its control gaps as well as add to the distraction factor. Plus the -resist thing can be made perma, to help your perma PA.

Ice/Time will also be pretty slick (sorry) for those who like Arctic Air. The -hit toggle will make that much safer. The amount of slows youll have might be serious overkill.

Earth/Time will have a little -slow and -defense meshing, but there wont be any particular positional synergy. Of course, nothing stops you from jumping ino melee on earth control. Earth/Time/Stone with air superiority could be a fun high control punchy melee set.

I think Elec/Time will have a lot of harmony due to both sets having lots of point blank effects. Other than -hit toggle making your -end toggle safer, I dont see much synergy really. Just positional harmony.

I think the aoe confuse powers of plant and (with enough global recharge) mind will make it fun to confuse dudes, then run in with your -hit toggle and lay waste from melee range, esp with fissure and seismic smash from the stone epic.

I am not re-rolling anything. I do have plenty of new characters planned, but I tend to pick an AT and powerset combo that seems interesting, then I create a concept to fit. I am just responding since "none" data points seem like legit responses also.

Lewis

Xenos,

That worked. Thanks. I even knew those values were there but assumed it'd just cause the problem in the game. Glad you pointed it out.

Lewis

If they updated the store with a single chest emblem, would that count as a weekly update?

Or will we get a new powerset every week? If so, expect some weird filler such as Bad Guy Control or Punch-Stuff Assault. Eventually it will get so silly that is cool, like Drunken Style Gun-Fu. Which I would happily pay 1600 credits for.

Lewis

Starry,

The account server was down so you lost access to some features. I dont think it is mac specific.

Zwill,

I had a totally different issue which was far more critical. Both of my iMacs, which use different video cards (not at home, cant check) have the issue that increasing the resolution from 1024x768 to any larger resolution pretty much screws me. The game is clearly trying, but the increased resolution is spread logically beyond the screen, but the screen itself is still displaying at 1024x768 or some other smaller resolution. So it is as if I am zoomed into some arbitrary part of the larger logical image that the client is trying to draw. Moving my character at all makes the camera drive/point down and the perspective pulls up in the air slightly, but I still can only look down while spinning the camera around a point.

On one iMac I got lucky and could barely see the edge of the cancel changes button, but not on the other one. So one is totally borked unless there us a video settings file I can delete so that I go back to default.

Also, if it helps, even when the game is trying to run at 1024x768, which it kinda can do, there is the issue that the resolution isnt quite right. There are small black vertical bars on the left and right edges of the play area.

On a minor note, I also cant tab out of the new beta client. Weird. I have to exit fully.

Anyway, if this change/client goes forward, I wont be able to play at all and will have 3 useless accounts. Has anyone else reported this? I submitted the bug in the client with /bug but didnt have room for many details.

Am I the only one?

Thanks,

Lewis

From reading these powers, I think Mind/Time/Stone and Plant/Time/Stone Controllers will make fun melee quasi-Dominators. Hot melee beatdowns. Good times.

Lewis

All,

I was thinking about how Dominators arent getting a powerset or a proliferation in Freedom/I21. I was also thinking about how the revealed time manipulation powers would interract with different control sets. Then it occurred to me that a Mind/Time/Stone Controller would play a lot like a Dominator. Well, at least for now until Doms get something.

That big pbaoe -hitbuff power would add good survivability in melee range. Mind has lots of controls that are interrupted when you unload. These mesh. Use mass hyp or terrify or when they are up, mass confusion or total dom. Maybe throw down the location based -rech with chance to hold, to increase containment chances, if I even care about containment. Then run in and unload with your single target mind control stuff slotted for damage, plus seismic smash, air superiority and fissure. As fissure wakes them, that massive pbaoe -hit toggle keeps you safe, not to mention all the pbaoe heals, buffs and debuffs. Then keep pounding them down with fissure, seismic, and mind control attacks.

Sounds like something dominator-esque to do until the Dom Love comes around.

What say you?

Lewis

I will spend them on powersets. Testing the wishlist and how far 10000 will go sounds good. I want to text the xp bonus dealy, mainly its duration.

Lewis

I just wish I could take Tough and Weave without taking Boxing. Then my character could have all 4 powers.

Lewis