UnicyclePeon

I find it extremely useful even on its own, as long as you don't expect to be able to alpha-strike the majority of the spawn. If you've got any other method of surviving other than "I have to stun everyone with my opener or else I'm dead" then its a great power. My Illusion/Storm uses it all the time, because I've got other tools in my kit. Hurricane and Spectral Terror both allow me the leeway to then stun all the minions. Taking a bunch of minions out of the fight is golden, especially at higher levels where minions get some pretty nasty powers. My Ice/Storm uses it to great effect too. Ice slick and Arctic Air and freezing rain and other powers really let you get in and leverage the power.

It is trivial to perma too, so as long as you can get in close among your foes, you can keep all of the minions out of the fight forever. I love this and rely on it often.

But, maybe that's just me.

Lewis

I agree, for some of my characters it wouldn't feel right. For those characters, I just keep doing radio missions or AE missions against non-cosmic type plots. You can fight CoT and Council all the way up to 50 (assuming the character is still fun to play).

Lewis

I'd go so far as to say that I'm opposed to new endgame content, not merely indifferent.

I mean, there are some additions to the game, like animated tails, that don't detract from gameplay if you don't want them (other than, in theory, a use of developer resources). However, an endgame system totally screws me over. I admit its because I have a specific set of preferences and pet peeves, but its a radical change for me, even based on what we can only guess at as being true (in all likelihood).

I like playing heroes to level 50 and then having them in my "collection." Currently, any level 50 in my collection can be taken off the shelf and taken for a spin on ANY content in the game. I can have SOs, or a low recharge / cheap build of IOs, or a mega super uber build, but in each case I'm welcome and helpful on all content. I'm also eligible for all content on a whim when I'm in the mood to play anything in my collection of 50s. A new endgame system will change all that. It WILL make players more powerful.

A dev commented that the benefits (of improving through the new endgame system) wouldn't apply to the normal game scenarios because they didnt want people who'd benefitted from the new system to be able to buzzsaw Monster Island solo. Any content that requires characters on that level (capable of soloing GMs) is likely going to be hard enough or competitive enough that my huge list of collected characters will be useless on such a team. That INSTANTLY makes all my level 50s useless / wasted effort. The whole purpose is to get them to the point where I can say to a team "Oh, you wanted an Earth/Storm controller? I have that exact build at 50. Oh, you'd rather have a softcapped Katana/SR? Got one of them too." This level of new content is likely to make all my level 50 heroes OBSOLETE.

At the very least, I'll have to play my 50s through a lot of the endgame system to have them useful on endgame content. The devs wont make it trivial to max out whatever this new endgame content is. Otherwise, whats the point. So anyone with LOTS of level 50 characters is kinda boned *IF* (like me) its important to you to be able to do any content on ANY of them with welcome smiles from teammates.

So catgirl tails and a new naming scheme with global suffixes doesnt hurt people at all (IMO) whereas a new endgame system makes my previous efforts (of making a stable of alts I can take out on a whim for endgame content) null and void. 5.5 years of wasted "pretties" being collected. At least that's my fear, that this new endgame system will undermine all my previous time. It'd be different if I had only 1, 2, or even 5 characters at level 50.

Still, I can't begrudge them putting it in. I'm in the minority, so I'll have to swallow my complaints.

If the new system affects me as I fear it will, I may have to pick 1 character per account to be my UBER character, and plink with endgame content when I'm in the mood, but I'll mostly be working on my other not-50-yet fun projects. I'll just have to hope that a smile and a nod on the global channel of my choice will still get my non-uber characters in for an ITF, and I'll just have to regret that the hundred or more hours on that character didn't get me into the new endgame.

Lewis

/paranoid

I don't think so. I found the original announcement to be straightforward.

Pre-purchase with no free month and you'll get early access due to it being through their store (and so tied into the game). Pre-order through a retail outlet and no early access goodies, but you get the usual free month cause its a stand-alone box. Later, if you pre-purchased, you can pick up the goodies in a separate transaction just like they've done in the past. Easy peasy.

I'm sure they'll be delighted with extra money though.

Lewis

I think he does. That's why he mentioned one when referring to the other. He did something similar with Pain and Empathy. While they are more different, the devs stated that they considered Pain to be the villain equivalent of Empathy, so he did the same reference in his list between the sets.

Basically, he understood that Ninja and Katana will never need to be proliferated, and that Pain and Empathy will probably never be proliferated due to dev opinion.

Lewis

GAH! I hadn't even thought of that. I hate you. Not as much as I hate me, but still.

Lewis

Oddly, I feel the EXACT same way about new series of Doctor Who!

Lewis

Thanks.

The page generates 3 columns with a random roll for each non-unlockable AT. It also randomly picks a hero AT, a villain AT, and an AT across all of them. That way, for a single random character, you've got 3 columns to look at (if you cant live with column one) and you can make yourself use the random AT it rolled.

For teams, with friends, you can do interesting things like:

[RELAXED] Everything rolled is available (all 3 columns), friends squabble over who gets what from all 15 results (or 30 results if you are playing in RWZ AE or in the upcoming Going Rogue).

[LIMITED] Any ONE column is available, but the column used must be used by everyone. So, you get to squabble over which column to use, then over who gets to play what from within the column selected.

[STRICT] You must use column one. You still get to squabble over who plays what.

As I said in an earlier post, this worked for a while until the min-maxer in our group (who is also the complainer in our group) got sick of Martial Arts / Invulnerability. I still love and play my Mind/TA controller, even tho we didn't stick out our "Random Theme Group" to level 50.

Anyway, its just a time killer, and its kinda amusing. Here is the link again for convenience. http://www.lwb.org/compgeek/coh/random_at.php

Lewis