Journal of a first-time MMORG player
By
187nut,
Posted on: 2005-01-20 01:10 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
I have read every entry in your journal and enjoyed it, tpull. Thanks for taking the time to share your experiences. 
Thank you, Kanina!
Entry 15
The Battle Cry of Martial Master is "Time to get Freaky!" It was originally "For Freedom!" based on trying to play Freedom Force (not as much fun by the time you're trying to control four characters at once), but I'm getting to Brickstown at this point, and Freaks are everywhere. And not just my fellow heroes either, there are a lot of villain Freaks as well. The tagline stays, since new teammates tend to have fun with the phrase, and how they choose to respond to it. It is very important for each character to have a good tagline. Who can forget "Up, up, and away!" "Here I come to save the day!" "Whatchu talkin' bout, Willis?" This is arguably more important than having a character description. (I try to fit my journal in the character description, but it doesn't... quite... fit...).
There are several aspects of the game that I am learning to use for my own benefit at this point. I have downloaded the Test Server and tried a few of the powers before training up, and quickly found that I didn't like Crippling Axe Kick; the animation time was a little too long (and the effect didn't really match the impressive-sounding name!). Key bindings are starting to come in handy as well, and I am always making notes to study this more. My favorite is using the g' key to auto-follow the nearest enemy. Specific characters I have make specific comments quite frequently, so I start hot-keying letters on my keyboard to phrases like (sing along if these sound familiar, it means you've teamed with me before):
all tanks to the front!
here we go
next floor, men's toys and women's lingerie
and some raided from the boards that I found amusing:
Why do villains hide out in sewers ?
Cause in Sewers, No Once Can Smell You &#%$ Yourself
How many embalmed cadavers does it take to screw a lightb... *BOOM*
Q: How does a Mad Freak Slammer go to the bathroom?
A: Very carefully.
However, once in a while I would hit a wrong key, and instead of going into auto-run, I would say a phrase that might be inappropriate, or at least out of place at that moment. Once, after a particularly bad stretch of having Fat Finger Syndrome on my keyboard, I managed to cycle through just about all of my sayings, while accomplishing nothing of what I actually meant to do. My teammates thought I had a typewriting version of Tourette's Syndrome. I decided to get rid of all the catch-phrases except for the lingerie comment and the "here we go" comment.
Here's a trick, though, that I pick up from my constant bug reports and other support that I always seem to be sending: I type out what I want to say in my Notepad, then copy it into the message. When a GM contacts me, I simply tab over to the notepad and copy it into my response to the GM, so I don't have to spend so much time typing it up again. I also keep all of my catch-phrases, and others (new ones coming, teammates!), as well, so I can paste them in at more appropriate times, without accidentally triggering them all over the place. This frees up keys for other, more useful bindings. Now if only I can keep them straight as I log on each alt...
Level 32! Eagles Claw. I don't care about the animation length this time, because the animation itself is so rad-cool, and I do a Critical Hit that knocks out my opponent in one kick! Oh, I'm keepin' this one! Is this the best for my build? Maybe not, but even though I am very competitive with almost any other game, I could care less if someone is more "efficient" than I am. I can do backflips when I attack! This is why I play the game, there is nothing more beautiful than doing a fully-slotted Crit on a baddie that does over 1,000 points of damage. Combine this with Dragon's Tail, and I'm starting to really enjoy the way my character looks and moves. Plus, they got rid of that wretched ballerina-looking animation for Storm Kick, and it looks decent now too. I don't mind that the animations don't match real martial arts moves (minor stretch practicing Aikido in real life for a few years), I'm totally okay with being a super-hero that has invented his own unique looking and moving art in Paragon City. Although a more realistic ninja-class might be fun. The possibilities are endless when you consider all the different fighting styles there really are. It's enough to make one hope for a City of Heroes: Martial Arts, where you can choose Karate, Judo, Aikido, Street Fighting, Drunken Boxing, Capoeira, Wushu, Kenpo, Hapkido, Kendo, Kickboxing, Krav Maga, Muay Thai, Taekwando, T'ai Chi, Ju-Jitsu, Tang Soo Do, Wing Chun... pant pant.
Not that I'm trying to plant ideas in the Devs heads or anything.
I have an idea! No wait...it's just gas.
Hellscorp
I am enjoying your journals quite a bit.
My character Jack Nimble is a MA/Regen scrapper, to I totally agree with you on Storm Kick - I like the new animation much better. With the old, when I missed it was even *more* stupid looking... One of my team-mates (who has sadly moved on to WoW 
) would say "And Jack wiggles his foot at evil". I'm glad they changed it.
I would probably be 1st in line (well, top 10, anyway) for a Drunken Style MA in CoH... That would be hella-cool!
[ QUOTE ]
"And Jack wiggles his foot at evil"
[/ QUOTE ]
lol
That's priceless. I feel a fanfiction story coming on...
I have an idea! No wait...it's just gas.
Hellscorp
You learn something new every day. Entry 14 has a few redundant passages at the top, but there's a time limit to allowing you to edit your posts. Ah well.
Entry 16
Brickstown is a good place for Martial Master. Nice open areas, and a plethora of villain choices to combat, in varying numbers. I stumble onto Serafina, the Magic store contact, which is perfect, since that's my Origin. Another source for missions, great! I seek out all the other store contacts. Who cares whether I can buy or sell stuff there later (although that does come in handy), these NPCs are the best source of flavor to the game at this level. There is a ton of potential here to revisit these contacts for more missions. Maybe if you complete the missions, they could award you a higher enhancement, like in story arcs, or they will unlock' higher levels of enhancements for you to buy. Heck, I'd settle for just more missions from them, their backgrounds and potential are better than that of our regular contacts. As I bounce back and forth between Brickstown and Founder's Falls, I start working on earning my badges a little bit.
The new map tiles are great. After such dreariness of underground caves (sometimes in the middle of Perez Park, no less!), I can appreciate the neat graphics of 5th caves and Oranbega. Although some 5th caves with the water bay area really slow down my system, maybe because it takes serious computing power to render the graphics, I'm guessing. I remember the first time I saw a Lab map in the Positron task force, and thinking how neat it was, and how I would use elements from that to design my own super group base when the time came. Now I'm torn between 5th caves, the laboratory setting, and Oranbega. Maybe they'll design things so we will be able to incorporate elements from whichever style we want (but the end product may look cheesy if that happens). Lost count of how many times I got stuck on the candle holders in Oranbega, though. I spend a long time with Tallrick trying to find a final mob in a massive Oranbega cave, and get the idea to petition it. A GM tells me it's bugged, and fixes it quickly. This starts a habit of my petitioning more often when I can't find something. Half the time it's bugged, half the time I just missed it. One time the GM has to enter my Freak mission, and he shows up as a police drone! I had never seen that before, the GM hadn't needed to enter one of my missions. The Devs are highly responsive, and seem to have a good reputation for doing a better job than that of other games, from what I can tell with in-game conversations with other-MMORG veterans. Overall, the bugs aren't too bad as you go higher in level. Nowhere near the nightmares of Exemplaring to task forces and the Hollows server crashes. Ah, good times...
Each time I get a CoT mission, I'm hoping for some good enhancements, but by my measure, I do not receive nearly enough good usable Magic-based enhancements from these guys. Looking around the map, I send a tell to one of my buddies asking if there's anything good behind the Magical Barriers. He laughs and tells me those are the equivalent of the 5th's prison cells. Neat! I've never been knocked out and woken up in one of those yet. Maybe on an alt...
Which brings up another idea for an Event. If the Devs want to, they could add special mission contacts for a weekend, with all of the villain groups buying 5th technology to override the transporters, and going to the hospital would be unavailable for a weekend. Granted, people who don't read the boards or announcements might be taken by surprise, but is one weekend of "forced grouping" for a mission or two out of the whole year so bad? Hmm, I must be liking the team-up aspect of the game more these days to be thinking like that. There could be a temporary Event-ending raid to tackle the teleport-blocking equipment, hosted somewhere in Faultline or Boomtown, since those areas are so big and much of the areas are barren of heroes for the most part.
I'm also learning to anticipate the Freakshow Rez, as I like to call it. It's like a dance of sorts when you're solo. I put down everyone, low on health, pant, pant... hey! Stay down! And they said Cobra Strike was useless. I learn to enjoy it more when I see I earn xp for taking them down a second time; start to linger around their bodies in Bricks a little bit just to see if they want some more of Martial Master. Cool power for bad guys to have.
The Devouring Earth (DE) are interesting, and Boulders and some of the others are just plain fun for me, due to their vulnerability to smashing damage. The first time I'm caught in a Quartz drop, it quickly turns into a "Martial Master has dropped to the ground." I read the description, and learn to target whatever is on the ground first! I'll Dragon Tail everyone, then use Focus Chi to pummel it into nonexistence, whether it's a Fungi, a Quartz, or a Cairn. Teaming is actually harder than at the lower levels. One person joins my team, but quits because he says he detests the DE. I am left nonplused, thinking that was very unheroic of him. I would never pass up a mission just because the opposition was a little challenging. There are a lot of irritating elements to opponents, whether it's Swarms or Caltrops, but usually the source of the irritation is, in large part, precisely because it takes a little extra effort to beat them. I rethink it in less than a minute and shrug it off, because obviously it is such a pain for the guy, it makes the game no fun for him. And fun is what we're all about, so I assume he's not really a coward, just someone who wants to maximize his personal fun, and DE gives him a headache. Me, I buckle down and resolve to complete my current mission, even if I have to do it solo. I note I'm still spending more time solo, mainly as a default, even though I like teaming now. Part of that is because I'm playing late, and there seems to be few people online. On the weekends, I tend to team more.
I see an occasional hero with weird-looking names, and quite often it's because they mis-spelled it. I am so glad I did not mis-spell my hero's name at the beginning of the character design process. If I hadn't been careful, I would be known as the Marital Master. Gah!
I have an idea! No wait...it's just gas.
Hellscorp
[ QUOTE ]
I'm also learning to anticipate the Freakshow Rez, as I like to call it. It's like a dance of sorts when you're solo. I put down everyone, low on health, pant, pant... hey! Stay down!
[/ QUOTE ]
I remember those days... being a low level (early twenties) controller on a team that just defeated a Freakshow Tank. My team moves on, and wouldn't you know it... the Tank rezzes and isn't very happy to see the controller still standing there!!!
Oh, the memories...
"Goodbye, Jean-Luc. I'm gonna miss you... you had such potential. But then again, all good things must come to an end..." -- Q
Entry 17
Paragon Protectors are the biggest annoyance at this level, with maybe Swarms up there for competition. I still can't consider myself an expert at the game, as I'm still figuring out how to tackle things sometimes. My blaster is used to firing and retreating, but Martial Master is used to diving head-in, and running off to engage the next mob before the nearest body has hit the ground. I learn to pull a strategic retreat just to give a little time for the Protectors' Elude or Moment of Glory to wear off so I can connect with them again.
Level 35. Teleport! I dig this power, it fits in well with my magic background too. Terrible, terrible lag on the computer, though. Not sure if there's a better way to code things so that is reduced. Only thing better would be flying cars. C'mon, they promised us flying cars by now in the real world, surely a city crawling with super heroes like Paragon City is would have them! Hmm, I wonder which Issue Update that will be.
The begging for pl has begun! I don't know what the common level is for this type of begging, but I get tells crawling out of the woodwork asking if I can power level people. I have hesitation on pl'ing my friends, what in the world ever gave people a thought that I would take on a low-level no-nothing partner who basically approached me on the streets?!? At least Jason Todd stole Batman's wheels before he got some attention. I /ignore about five names or so when those come up. It actually does not last for too many levels. I read up about it on the boards, though, and it sounds like an epidemic.
The other big thing that happens a lot now is blind invites, and spam invites. I do things differently than most, I think. If I want a group, I isolate things to the lfg menu first, then go after others only if I need to, and I send a tell each time to explain what the group will be doing. I have no idea why people try to invite you when you are not looking for a team, and you don't know them already. It's like Jehovah's witness knocking on your door, or a telemarketer calling you during dinner. These, unfortunately, never really go away, though I am not bombarded with them constantly.
Spam invites are actually few, but possibly he most irritating. After a third invite, I send a private tell, saying this is a good way to end up on people's ignore list. The guy tries to laugh it off, while at the same time saying I'm going on his ignore list, after admitting he wasn't even paying attention to his invites. I have no idea how many people he was spamming. He also tried to insist my lfg was on, but a Petition helped me make sure that wasn't the case. Once more, sing along... /ignore.
These are fairly rare overall, but they are memorable. It's sort of like driving. You have no incidents with 99.9% of the drivers on the road for a day, but the jerk that cut you off and you almost hit, him you're going to remember at the end of your destination. I'm not sure if this is an American mind-set or not, but we tend to remember negative impacts more than positive ones overall, whether in real life, or even in games like this. When I realized my brain did this almost automatically, I made a concerted effort to change my reaction, so I don't get nearly as pissed off as I used to if someone cuts me off. By the time I'm playing this game, spam invites don't even come close to being truly irritable. I let the negative stuff breeze by like a light wind, and get back to my enjoyment!
I'm still playing rather heavily, and at one point I am either even with Red Haven, or actually one level above him for a change. He is surprised, but he needn't have worried. He is past me the very next day, as real life creeps in. Our team-ups mostly end here, as he starts to actually pick up speed, to my amazement, and breeze through a couple more levels. I do missions, hunt around Brickstown when I can't find teams to finish my missions, and start looking forward to taking Elude as my next power, since I've heard there were some impressive changes to it after the Issue Update.
I have an idea! No wait...it's just gas.
Hellscorp
[ QUOTE ]
The begging for pl has begun!
[/ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The other big thing that happens a lot now is blind invites, and spam invites.
[/ QUOTE ]
Unfortunately, I can sympathize with your pain.
"Goodbye, Jean-Luc. I'm gonna miss you... you had such potential. But then again, all good things must come to an end..." -- Q
Entry 18
Badges! I have so many of them now, thank you for Teleport. A quick jaunt into the Abandoned Sewers tells me I should come back for that badge later, though. I am never going to get that stench out of this costume. Phew! Martial Master now has a second costume, and an aura to go with it. Since I had no expectations for new things like capes and auras originally, they really add to my appreciation of the game. I hit 36, then 37. I am really looking forward to Elude now, especially since we have to go up three levels instead of two to get powers after level 32.
The special edition DVD has come out, and I feel the urge to get it, but resist. I'm a comic collector fanboy enough as it is, I don't need to get that kind of obsession with this as well. I can live without the badge or Power Slide (although that does look really cool), but the Heroclix of Statesman almost makes me get it. I used to play Heroclix, but there's no time for that and CoH! My friends got me at first and dragged me into it, and now they have all lost interest, so here I am with a ton of Heroclix and nobody to play with me. Ah well, it was a money pit just like Magic: The Gathering. I couldn't stop buying the packs just to see what I would get next, every day felt like Christmas. CoH is a less expensive habit.
There is a little controversy with the DVD edition, and I supposed I can understand why the existing players don't like it. But I can see things from the other side as well. In order to get a second wave of customers, they had to come out with a revised product, and I can't fault them for trying to offer unique things as a draw. By this time, there were several things that have changed in the game anyway that need to be updated regardless. The DVD also allowed for existing players to reload the game for those who had computer problems, which I don't think anyone mentioned. Also, if you didn't have computer problems but just purchased a brand new computer, this might be a nice way to load it onto the new system. Martial Master can't get the Isolator badge anyway, so it won't stick too hard that I have another one out there I won't obtain. If they offer the stuff at a lower cost later, independent of the DVD, I'd probably get it just to get it, but not for $50. One product I hope they issue in a year or two is a revised Game Manual. I like to take mine with me, so when I'm standing in line somewhere, I can plot out which terrific new power I'm going to take. How am I supposed to plan out my Katana character, when all the power descriptions are out of date? It should come with a new fold-out map to show the new zones, with the reverse side or a second map showing the Shard! I hope when they get their CoH store going in real life, they hold a poll and ask the players which merchandise they would be most likely to buy, that will take a lot of the guesswork out of trying to figure if a product line will have enough support to be profitable.
I'm enjoying the comic book. The art is not the best, but I'm speaking as an adult. It looks like the entire CoH atmosphere is intended to be kid-friendly, and that's what the art is. It also means the storyline is a little simplistic, but with this understanding that I'm not reading a Watchman or Maus, I find it to be a passable read. Seeing as how the average comic book reader is 30 years old, though, I wonder if they really want to go in this direction forever. It's a free subscription, so I won't drop it, but it is not the quality of comic that I would buy from the store. I'm hoping it will improve as the writer and artist continue, and I expect to see a change in the creative team at some point, which always happens with comics, so it's all good (It's not until months later that I'm in the comic store, reading Previews Magazine, and see an ad for the comic. Mark Waid? No way, he's one of my favorite writers! Oh, man was that an awesome move for them to do. I can barely wait.).
They're asking for fan fiction! I haven't exercised my writing muscles in a while, so I make a story about my Kinetics/Physchic Blast guy, Klarion, and submit it. Some of the fan art is really good, I'm so jealous of artists. I can't draw a stick figure without mesing it up. Gasp! They choose someone else's story. I'm never writing again! Just kidding. Anybody who really loves to write is going to end up writing again, even if they get a thousand times a thousand rejections. The story is posted on a fan fiction site instead, those interested can go here to that story: (warning: gratuitous plug for a fan fiction site here!)
Klarion story
I keep meaning to read some of the other stories on there, but there aren't enough hours in the day for me to play the game itself, it's gonna be a few months before I stop to read anything...
I have an idea! No wait...it's just gas.
Hellscorp
I like the twist in the story, quite unexpected and very entertaining.
"Goodbye, Jean-Luc. I'm gonna miss you... you had such potential. But then again, all good things must come to an end..." -- Q
[ QUOTE ]
next floor, men's toys and women's lingerie
[/ QUOTE ]
That sounds redundant.
lol, it is. I had a second hotkeyed statement that said, "Which is really the same thing, when you think about it..."
I have an idea! No wait...it's just gas.
Hellscorp
Entry 19
The fighting mix changes as you level up. For the first ten levels or so, most heroes, even in the Scrapper archetype, will wind up as mud in an attempt to tackle a purple-conning enemy. At first it's only in groups that you can tackle these more powerful foes. Martial Master can handle almost any number of white-con minions, or even groups of three yellow-cons, and an occasional orange. My blaster can handle about the same, but with considerably more backpedaling, if not out-and-out running away (with sounds of Monty Python ringing in my ears every time). But here I am in my 30s (level, but yeah, my age is in the 30s too!), and I see all these reds and purples running around in Founder's Falls. Why did they put them right next to the freeway like that...? I take on two red-conning CoT thorn throwers, and manage to put them down. Not as hard as I thought. Suddenly, I'm running my own mental calculations as I jump into what used to be impossible odds, trying different enemies that are red and even purple. Most of the time I have to run away, but I've broken whatever mental conditioning the game had settled me into for avoiding them. I may have to take more downtime to heal now, but Martial Master runs up and down the streets, settling into a nice groove of tackling yellow and orange CoT enemies, and walking away almost all the time without a large hospital bill. I'm getting rich off of the higher-level enhancements I earn, and since I'm Magic-based, it matches the small amount of role-playing I do with this character, since the CoT are (secretly) involved in a certain way with the origin of MM.
I also head over to Peregrine Island and scout out the area, just to become familiar with things. I end up merging my team with another that is hunting Fake Nemesis for the badge. Here I turn over leadership to Blue Astrid upon request. Finally, someone who likes to be leader and is good at it! Blue is on several times at the same time as I am over the next couple months, and we team up often, most times linking up as soon as the other logs on, alternating leadership. It doesn't matter too much, since we're both good. Whoever is already leader of a group stays on. When Blue doesn't feel like it, the reins are handed to me, but more often I get to tag along as just a Scrapper who busts heads for a change. Which is fun! I don't have to spend as much concentration on keeping track of everyone, I just check to make sure the group is ready, and jump headfirst into whatever we're going after. Ah, to cut loose without thinking... Blue Astrid disappears after a while, maybe kept away by real life. Maybe just hit the /hide for all I know. All I know is, I meet cool people, but they seem to disappear after a few months, sometimes never to return. It makes maintaining an active Friends list difficult, because you want to keep good eggs like Blue on the list, but after six months, you kinda need the room for someone who's actually on and playing.
I experiment with /hide for a couple sessions, mostly in reaction to all the pl requests, and partly because I'm in a loner mood on occasion. I learn not to use it anymore, as the pl requests start to die down, and I end up with a small cadre of friends that are on consistently. My loner spells don't last past one night or two, and when you see a friend online, you usually want to say hi at least, even if you're both busy with different missions, and it's not an opportune moment to team. Other times, I've realized that a friend or two might need help, and it doesn't feel right to be running around hiding when I could be of service. I think of the Avengers and the Justice League, and how often they /hide. Doesn't feel too heroic. If I'm having a total loner feeling for the night, I might do it again, but overall I think a week of experimenting with it proves I don't really need to use it for anything.
I have an idea! No wait...it's just gas.
Hellscorp
Entry 20
Elude is here! That level-up music is sweet to my ears, now I will finally get the chance to find out what all the excitement is. I test the power out in Peregrine Island. Nemesis fall like dominos, as I test out yellow-, orange-, and red-conning baddies. Purples are doable as well, but I eat dirt a couple times as I learn exactly how many levels higher I can handle when they show up purple. There are purples, and then there are purples!
Martial Master is virtually unstoppable. After 38 levels, finally something that truly makes you feel like a super hero. Flying is great, and various attacks are fun, but Elude takes things to a whole new level. With Focused Fighting, Martial Master was used to being hit quite often, but unstoppable is really the wrong word. Untouchable is more like it. There is a massive END dropoff when Elude wears off, but CABs are so easy to come by, it's hard to see this as a big deal, unless you're in-between two purple bosses right when it wears off (which does happen once or twice, as I figure how long it lasts, and how long the recharge takes). I'm more willing than ever before to jump into overwhelming odds, and see if I can come out on top.
The Nemesis Colonels can usually tag me better than any others, so an opening Cobra Strike puts them on the sidelines while I take out all the minions. I save every Colonel until last, since their Vengeance effect makes me whiff way too much. I make a game out of alternating damage between two Colonels, whittling them down until I can take them both out at once with a final Dragon's Tail, so neither manages to get the benefit of a Vengeance. Nyah nyah! Cobra Strike is turning out to be useful more often than players give it credit for on the board. The stun it gives opponents reduces the damage I take, and keeps me closer to full health, and on the move. Btter dps and all that.
I start making lightning-fast hunting loops in Bricks and Founder's, using Super Speed to take out the honking huge purple Behemoth Lords before moving on to see how many Thorns I can take out in the next group before Elude wears off. Bricks is just plain fun, since Crey or the 5th usually has seven or eight guys standing around in one place. Set em up, knock em down. Along the way I spot other heroes testing out their new uber-power, as flaming imps decimate entire ranks of enemies, while a Nova downs ten guys at once. PI along the docks gets crowded on occasion, as different hunting parties run into each other constantly. As soon as that happens, I shout out, "to the next dock!" and gleefully jump into the water. The fire imps can have the one dock, me and my group will take the other.
It's around this time that I end up side-kicking a lower-level player, Magic Kisses, who has almost as many alts as I do. We go into the sewers, and she laughs as she watches me jump into a large group, and observes that they can't lay a finger on me. She buffs me with Fortitude and other stuff, and I quickly learn that Recovery Aura is an Eluder's best friend. We mash through missions at an even faster pace than before, and I even stop using Elude after a while, just to give Magic something to do. She's an excellent healer, it turns out, so I have no reservations about the risk. We die very rarely when teamed up. It gets so whenever I log on, she's there, sending me a tell, "Hey, sexy." I can't get excited about that, she calls everyone sexy!
I understand now how Red Haven accelerated his leveling, whereas I had guessed he wold slow down. The ramping of xp rewards and your new powers enable you to tackle ever-tougher odds, with commensurate rewards. It's here that I remember Statesman's oft-quoted rule that CoH would be working towards a game balance of three white-cons being a challenge for one player. I conclude I detest that idea. I want to have the feeling that Spider-Man or an equivalent hero does. Let's face it, the Wrecking Crew might con white to him, but he still manages to handle them without much of a sweat. The balance of the game allows you to have more fun when you beat down higher-level opponents. Part of this is purely psychological, but it is there, nonetheless. Who wants to have a more accurate ranking, and then the only time you can take on ten guys at once is when they're all that pathetic-looking green color? That doesn't feel super! Super is being able to take out the occasional purple dude. This may seem a little like grade inflation in the schools, which I find distasteful, but this is a game, and my abilities as they are make this fun. Three-to-one white cons might be more "realistic," but at this stage, I have to say realism should take a backseat to fun every time. If the Devs want to change a power here and there in the mix, that's one thing, but I think the mix for villains is perfect the way it is. The only debate that's really left is the idea of leaving bosses out of some missions, so the casual players can have a better chance to solo.
I have an idea! No wait...it's just gas.
Hellscorp
(Note: Entry 19 was a little short, so here's some extra to make up for it.)
Entry 21
It's a good time in the game for Martial Master. He's found a good friend in ElectraKittie, who also has a partner that is online at the same time as she is. It's been just long enough that I can't remember his name, and that's gonna bug me. Because we partner up every other time I'm online. If not them, then it's me and Magic Kisses. Whether it's street hunting or indoor missions, we have fun, we die rarely, and we definitely leave good looking corpses! They are also willing to follow my lead, so when I ask if they want to leave a mission upon completion or clear the rest of the map, they leave it up to me. Uber-Scrapper chooses to clear everything, of course! On a better night than most, Magic and I are joined by ElectraKittie and her partner. I make all the proper introductions, and the next few weeks blend into a big fog of lovely teaming with people who you know have your back.
One night, with ElectraKittie and partner, someone clicks on the final blinkie in the Baphomet mission just as I'm typing not to. Now we have to tackle Baphomet, but he's too much for the three of us. I get knocked out, and we can't re-enter the mission. ElectraKittie's partner says he'll let me know when he gets it, but the two of them disappear inside a couple weeks. More victims of World of Warcraft? I don't know, but fast forward to today at level 48, and I still need the Baphomet badge. Send a PM to me if you have the mission, I'd love to Exemplar down and help get it. I'm such a completist...
Real life intrudes upon my blissful fantasy. It's about this time that Marvel introduces its lawsuit against the companies that make City of Heroes. I find the official post, I read all of it. I go into the display preferences and change the number of threads on one page, so I can view more of them at once. This is a loooong thread. I find the actual complaint and read it, and everything is fairly ridiculous. I've met lawyers who don't want to get on a judge's bad side, I've met real estate people who tell me they've been in the business for 30 years, and they somehow make a mistake on my offer for a home. I'm the one who has to catch these things, because it's my life. There are a ton of flaws in Marvel's complaint, and they aren't that hard to catch. I don't have all the details, of course, since I'm not on the inside, but I get the sense Marvel did not try very hard to resolve this before launching a lawsuit.
I start a boycott. Not of the comics, the comics make less than a third of their profit, and even less a percentage of their overall revenue. Plus, I like and respect many of the writers and artists and the rest of the creative hard-working people that pout out the comics, and I don't want to punish them for the company's bad behavior. Most of the money comes from merchandising these days. I skip Blade 3, I refuse to by any product from Marvel other than a comic book itself. I tell all my friends and family, who always buy me Marvel stuff for Christmas, not to get me anything from them. It does no good. My mom, my girlfriend, my best friend, they all get me Marvel stuff anyway. My dad makes the comment that I'm tilting at windmills, and I am aghast that my nephew does not recognize the Don Quixote reference. Just what are they teaching kids in public school these days, anyway? I can only feel better at the observation that most of the gifts are really cheap merchandise. Hey! All of my family and friends were cheapskates this year! Mutter, mumble, grumble, gripe...
I create a protest character in the game. It's a purple Tank, and ever-so-slightly reminiscent of the Hulk. I go into Atlas and spam my Battle Cry for a couple minutes, it's the character's name as well: Marvel Co Sucks! I am greeted by one person who responds, telling me it won't do any good. I cite the First Amendment, and affirm the justness of my cause! He says, "Hey, I didn't say to stop doing it, I just said it won't do any good."
The next day or two, there is an e-mail from City of Heroes. Some of you may find it familiar:
" In an effort to limit the interruption of your game play as much as possible, a temporary name was assigned to the character(s) listed below." Well, I know they're enforcing the EULA, all right. That didn't take them long at all.
Marvel Co Sucks is now generichero510. ColonRectal Man has been changed to generichero512. It's too bad, I always dug the way the contact would say my full name each time I got a mission. There is another change in-between, but no new character name of generichero511 is listed, it's blank instead. Puzzling. I read the terms of agreement, and figure ColonRectal Man must be considered vulgar or otherwise offending, or part of their taboo about using names of body parts. I wonder if I could change the name to Vulgar Man...
It's actually a medical reference, but I'm not going to push it. I ask for that to be changed to CRM, and I delete the Marvel Co Sucks protest character. The middle hero was interesting, it was my Natural Scrapper, Gamesmaster, over on the Champion server. According to them, "Please note the above name was too close to "Game Master" which could cause confusion of being City of Heroes employee." That makes sense to me, I hadn't thought of that. I change his name to Counterbalance, which I actually like a lot better. I was really surprised at this point to find such a good name that wasn't already taken by someone else. And one I felt fit the character, no less! I start writing down good names for CoV, and trying to match them up with the power sets I want to try out, combinations that none of my other 16 characters have yet. This helps me resist my urge to create more alts, because I need to be able to try new powers when CoV comes out.
I log back in a few days later as CRM. I'm standing around in Atlas, and the NPCs start talking. They tell of my exploits, as they always do... but they are saying my full name, ColonRectal Man! Somehow, the original name was still coded in, even though everywhere else, I was listed as CRM. I start breaking out laughing, and send a tell to Red Haven to let him know my name is still being mentioned! I think this has been changed by now, but it felt gloriously anarchical at the time to have all these civilians praising my good deeds in his true name. Psst! Don't tell anyone kiddies, but CRM is still really ColonRectal Man! Read my origin when you see me. His battle cry has remained the same: "Looks bad, I'm gonna have to operate!"
I feel fairly good overall about the notification and renaming process, and the replies from CoH were courteous even in their admonishment. I feel good about the game, and the people behind it, and I am confident they can hire better lawyers than the ones who filed the ludicrous complaint over at Marvel.
Martial Master hits level 39 and slots Elude with three more Recharge Reductions. Game on!
I have an idea! No wait...it's just gas.
Hellscorp
I agree, Marvel Co. Sucks!
"Goodbye, Jean-Luc. I'm gonna miss you... you had such potential. But then again, all good things must come to an end..." -- Q
hey, tpull. longtime reader, first-time poster. i love this thread. keep it up, man!
Let me do a flashback (these will have to suffice until the Devs give us Flashback in the game), but just to level 38.
Entry 22
Martial Master has been going into Eden for a few missions, and noticing that there's always one high-level villain amongst the mobs. I'm curious to see how far Elude will take me, and I jump into a group of Granites and such. One of the Devouring Earth (DE) must have dropped a Quartz, because I'm out in a couple of hits. I'm taking an overhead snapshot of the villains doing a victory dance on my head, and I get an invite to join a team! I'm thinking, okay, but I'm not exactly up and around at the moment...
The curse of the Task Force continues. Trials are included for these purposes. Martial Master had already leveled too far when they introduced the Hollows, and my one attempt to help out Red Haven do the Cavern of Transcendence ended with us nearly finished, and all thrown off by a server failure. I spend hours finding badges and exploring, just kind of loitering around the zones, trying not to out-level Numina. I get the Crey Pistol Accolade! Cool! The only time I ever get invites to do it is after midnight on weekends when I'm about to log. I finally manage to get some success, and put together a group of five Scrappers. Everyone notices and starts cracking jokes about all the other Archetypes, but it's all in good fun. I see another Scrapper with the same power sets as mine, and we start a gag about complimenting each other on "your fine choice of powers!" "Why, thank you! And may I say..." Since Scrappers are unto themselves each a one-man army, doing the missions is like having three armies at least being thrown up against the villains. They don't stand a chance. Half the time we're all spread out chasing down villains on the streets, and I don't think a single person died until the final mission.
We're up against the DE, and there are several comments about the eminators and all the stuff they drop that can be bad for us. I go face-down once in the middle of a corridor, as I'm able to take out one Quartz, but it turns out there are two of them. A couple others get taken out too, but I think Niptuck stayed alive through it all. I put him on my friends list. Now, I tend to shorten everyone's name as I type, but the game won't let me call him Nip, so I have to type it out in full. Sometimes I think the censor mechanism goes overboard, but I also find it mildly amusing. I Teleport to safety, and TP the others to the Eden entrance, much to their appreciation, since Eden is a lousy place to navigate. Just when I had started to think of Respecing out of it, too. Think I'll keep it after all. Everybody gushes about how fluid and flawless the Task Force ran, and I invite them all to my Supergroup. Nobody takes me up on it, because they're all in an sg, but they thank me for the offer. Ah, well. I guess you've got to get em early and get em young if you want sg mates.
I'm looking to do the Sewer Trial now, and after I'm in a good group, someone suggests it. This is only the second time I've been in the Abandoned Sewers, and it's kind of neat. When we all get down to the center, I find out part of why it's been hard to find groups lately. Everybody and their dog is hanging around outside the Trial entrance! Somehow I've ended up as leader again, don't ask me how this time. I was hoping to sit back and observe, since I have not done the Trial even once, even though at this point everyone is farming it daily. I invite Niptuck along, and we have one healer and one tank. The Controller, however, really messes everything up.
Before we go in, I impart as much information as I can to the team, and make sure everyone knows we want to complete it, not farm it for Krakens. The reason we decided to do this is because three of us wanted to do it to the end. Even though a couple on the team have done this before, I'm the one who ends up explaining the difference in the types of blasters we can pick up, based on info I've gleaned from the net. We head in and have a few deaths, but make it down to the bottom and start to work on a plan for the generators. The entire time, the Controller has ad Fire Imps out, and he won't put them away. I'm contemplating putting him up for a Kick, which I do by asking each of the team by a tell if anyone has a problem, but there's not enough time to do it. His imps start damaging a generator, he draws aggro on a Kraken, and knocks out our healer before we're even ready. Niptuck sends me a tell, "This isn't going well, dude." I know!"
The Controller is unrepentant throughout the whole thing, talking about how can you invite a Controller and ask not to use the pets? He just does not understand aggro, nor the need to take out the generators simultaneously. I've been using TP to get all our dead to the healer to resurrect, but now our healer is down and nobody has an Awaken left. I apologize to the healer as he quits, but he says it's not my fault. We all quit in disappointment, and I go work off my debt.
It's a while later before I'm able to do clear my mission slots, but I go do the first part, take out 150 Rikti in the sewers. Oh, no! I level up in the sewers! I'm hoping I can still get the second mission, but the contact won't give me anything. I had tried to get it ages ago when I wasn't even level 38 yet, and she said, "Hey, Martial Master. I totally admire your blind bravery, but you're going to get stomped." That made me laugh. I gather a team of four, thinking I can get the trial if I have a minimum number of people. I forget what level I was at by this point, but someone on my team points out that dinging in the sewers didn't matter. I was two levels too high to get the mission! Drat! I resign myself to the idea that Martial Master will not experience everything first-hand, and I'll have to get the Sewer experience with an alt. Gasp! This means I won't be able to get every badge for Martial Master either! Ah, I can't get the Isolator badge no matter what, so I'll just have to learn to live with it. Unless the Devs give us a Portal mission where nobody ever found a cure for the disease...
I accidentally get the Freedom Phalanx Reserve Accolade. I say accidentally, because I've been trying to track my Hit Points at each level as I train up, and now I have to break out the calculator each time to figure out what my HP would be without the accolade. Ah, my life is so hard, to have to deal with these types of problems...
I've been stalling on a title for my character, but after soliciting a few opinions from my coworkers and my best friend and his wife after giving them my top three choices, I settle on the Legendary Occult Martial Master. I set my Badge Title to Untouchable. Even though it's for something else, I take it because I'm Super Reflexes!
I have an idea! No wait...it's just gas.
Hellscorp
Love this thread, man!
By the way, you *can* still get the badges by joining someone elses mission. Just FYI in case you hadn't realized that already.
Outside the Journal Commentary
Thanks, Dragonbane. Anyone who has the mission, please PM me, I actually have some debt I can work off for a change! (4/5/2005)
I just saw the new Voting area, and I think that's a great community builder, I know I have tons of new websites to check out now, after just scanning some of the topics. Now if only there was a best Journal or RP Poll. And a prize! Do the prize winners get a unique Badge, or a discount for a month, or to be beta-testers for CoV? Everyone loves prizes...
I have an idea! No wait...it's just gas.
Hellscorp
Entry 23
Level 41 allows Martial Master to slot Elude with four Recharge and two Defense Enhancements. I think I became a perma-Eluder before I even fully knew what the term meant. I dub myself... Permaluder! That'll be my villain name when I make an arch-nemesis for myself over on CoV. Sounds much better than Elude-a-Perm. That sounds like an escapee from a prison beauty shop. I test my newly-tricked-out power on the hapless bad guys in peregrine Island, barreling over Nemesis on the docks, and working my way up the island until I see a level 50 Behemoth. Hmm... I survive one hit and walk away. Well, all right, I ran away. This round to you, demon, but I'm drinking milk, and someday I'll be bigger than you!
When my Scrapper had hit level 39, he ran to all these new contacts, up and down Founder's Falls and such. They won't give me anything until I hit level 40! But I came all the way up this cliff! Grr. With no missions, here is one area that actually feels like a grind for a little bit. I hunt in Founder's Falls for the lower southeast corner, where it looks like the best odds of finding good xp with an acceptable degree of risk. No luck finding teams for days on end. After 40, you have the opposite problem, because you gain tremendous amounts of xp helping others out with AV missions. It can be difficult to squeeze in all the content. I've been trying to get an Eden trial going for forever now, and I finally have success. Of a sort.
The Curse of the Task Force continues (notice the c' in Curse is in caps now, right?). My first attempt ends in failure, as the group wants to pass up all the Devouring Earth (DE) in the caves and head straight for one of the monsters. We manage to take him out, but it's really the blind leading the blind, and we can't make it past the first Wall. I go do some reading on the Internet, and come to find we really need a Controller to lock down the spawns around the Wall, so the Cairn-drops don't stop us from taking the Wall down. My second, different group fares little better. I suggest we tackle a group or two to learn how to mesh together, and everyone agrees it's a good idea... and proceed to jump down the holes to the Wall anyway. As I try to communicate what we need to do, somebody engages the mobs and everyone follows. A lesson in futility ensues. I'm a Scrapper with a big ol' wall to take down, so my best bet is to pound away as hard and fast as I can. I leave the spawns to everyone else, but it's not working. I find I have to stop and take out a Cairn to have any effect on the Wall, but another Cairn pops up to take its place, and now I have aggro. Fighting the mob does no good, they're endless. Failure again.
A Controller and I regroup with a couple new people to tackle it again, and I'm stressing the need to lock down the Sentries. We actually manage to get the Wall down in health enough that the Monster pops up. The rest of the team takes a dirt nap, and the big guy follows me around trying to land a punch past my Elude. The rest of the team just... lay there, dead, talking a little about what to do next. The Monster has perma-aggro on my butt, and a couple minutes later, I've used up all my green candy and am in permanent Super-Speed-backwards mode. No movement from the team, so even though I'm not the leader this time, I advise them to trade Awakens until our healer has one, and Resurrect the others to regroup. Not sure why it took five minutes and me to suggest this, but needless to say, the group cannot get it together enough to get through the first Wall. As I'm trying to figure out a new way to ask for a "lockdown" on the spawns that lay the Cairns, I level up to 42. Gah! That's it, I have to move on. I resolve to hit all of these things I'm missing with an alt, because they look neat, but my luck is only good for Elude, it seems, not for groups that work well together right this moment.
Luckily, I have run into Kisume around this time, a healer of great skill. She is quickly added to my friends list, and we become auto-invite buddies almost every time we are logged on at the same time. Between her, Magic Kisses, and ElectraKittie, I have become a Recovery Aura addict. It almost completely negates my END drop-off from Elude. Add in Fortitude and other perks, and I become a one-man wrecking crew. Tanks are few and far between for some reason, so I become the de facto Tank for most of our teams. If I take a little long at the end of the missions, it's because I'm actually reading the text. It's part of the reason I went solo for as much as I could at the start, I ran across a large number of people who were always go-go-go! I'm enjoying reading about the Revenant hero project, and the discoveries about the nature of the Rikti.
Note: I try not to give too much detail here to spoil the higher-level content. Lower-level players who would still like to read the Journal, please let me know if I give away too much, and I'll scale back content descriptions. I'm a story-teller, not a spoiler!
I have an idea! No wait...it's just gas.
Hellscorp
As one of your SG mates on Freedom, I must say I am enjoying this tpull. I may try to do something similar myself with my next newbie, or Kheldian once Scorp hits 50. (9 and a half levels to go!)
Keep up the good work!
Thanks, Hellscorp!
Entry 24
"Oh, no! What have I done?"
I was feeling nostalgic for my Blaster, so I dug out Ultra Meltdown (UM) and used his free Respec. The consensus on the message boards was that the Hasten/Stamina combo was the way to go, so I did that, plus got rid of Fly for a 4-slotted Hover and Air Superiority for the first time. The trouble started at the store, when I realized there are no Fly Speed Enhancements to buy. I experimented first on the Training Server with things like Lightning Field and Havoc Punch. Lightning Field looks awesome, but I couldn't really justify having it, and Havoc Punch didn't feel right either. As a result, I have only the default power from my secondary, and I've lost Power burst and Power Push from my primary.
The good news is I like Air Superiority, but I can't find any contacts that can give me Fly Speed, so I've got four useless slots sitting in Hover until I can find a good contact at this level. I finally buy SOs, and that means my Sniper Blast can drop white-cons, but that's a mixed blessing. I head into a warehouse in Striga, and it's a little boring at first. I snipe, wait for recharge, snipe again, and just move on slowly. But just when I'm thinking I should change my mission difficulty slider, I run into an orange-con who puts me in the hospital. Power Push, although heavily discounted by people, was actually instrumental in helping me dispatch orange-cons with a little less risk. It's a lot harder, now that I've lost something like four different attacks to get the Hasten/Stamina thing going. I like Super Speed, so I probably would have gotten Hasten eventually anyway, but compared to how I was able to handle myself before, I feel so gimped now. I end up putting some DOs in Hover, and set Hasten on auto.
Stamina has DOs as well, so after a little experimentation, I'm not too impressed with my overall END consumption still. I can tackle blue-cons to my heart's content, but I think I'd rather go back to being able to take on an orange-con without candy and settle for the extra downtime. This is all in the context of soloing, as almost everything Ultra Meltdown has done has been solo. After racking up 10,000 debt, I put him on the shelf for a while, then go back to test him out some more. I've shifted around all of his powers from where they were to get a better handle on how to use him. I even start to use the Hover-shoot method a little bit that I recalled seeing so many Blasters doing in Steel Canyon. I start to wonder if that's how I'm going to have to be just to stay alive. Oh man, let me get to 24 soon so I can do another Respec!
I decide to press my luck a few months later and tackle a yellow-con Tsoo Sorceror and a white-con Ink Man, knowing full well how even a blue-conning Ink Man can put me to sleep. Aim+Snipe almost takes out the Sorceror, but he Teleports. I'm on auto-follow, but I run into an information booth. Do they plan that or something? I take him out, and the Ink Man gets a few punches in, but nothing serious. I may be able to stick with this configuration after all, so I decide to at least try it longer before I Respec out of it. The biggest drawback is each time I take a power now, it won't be a new one to get excited about, but rather an old one I can breath a sigh of relief for being able to stick it back into my bag of tricks. Oh, how I miss Build Up...
Part of this is from playing Martial Master for so long, it's hard to remember how fragile my Blaster is. Fewer Hit Points, no status effects protection, and I am SO used to not being hit! Hmm, I wonder if the Blasters will ever get any kind of Super Reflexes powers? Kang had an awesome Force Field, it seems weird that Blasters wouldn't have at least one option like that built into the set somewhere. Or at least some type of armor mesh protection. No matter how they tried to develop it, the first thing that came to my mind when I read the Blaster description was Iron Man, and he is definitely more durable than I am. I also have trouble remembering to incorporate Air Superiority. I have no clue if it's worth slotting up or not, so I put one Accuracy in it. Sniper Blast can drop white-cons with one Acc and four Damage Enhancements. Stamina is five-slotted, Hasten six, and Hover four, so my poor Power Bolt and Power Blast are feeling neglected.
It's too bad I can't have Sniper Blast on auto-attack, it's what I use most now for these wide-open Striga warehouse missions. I think on my second outing with UM, I've already learned how to survive better, but this constant sniping whites just to get to the end for someone who might dispatch me easily is a little boring in the repetitious sense. The cure might be to just go get a team and have more to do at once than set position, snipe. Set position, snipe. I decide to mix it up a bit, and snipe once, then use Aim with my other attacks, close in for the kill and start getting into the habit of hitting Air Superiority. Hey, that's a little more fun. I'm intrigued by the idea of a blapper, a combo of Blaster and Scrapper, so I think I'll try one of those sometime, maybe for CoV. They don't seem to be too popular on the boards, and that's actually a little strange to me. You'd think people would offer gratz for finding ways of breaking the traditional molds that the game has created for us, as the players creatively find ways around the game-designed limitations. Some of the complaints sound like codgy old people instead of young computer gamers, protesting that Blasters should follow their roles like good little dogs. I'm used to using Super Reflexes to gamble it all, all the time, so I tend to think if a player is willing to risk the debt from being a blapper, let em rip. I'll have to reserve final judgement until I get to that point myself after test-driving a blapper build.
I'm also wondering if there is some kind of dichotomy with having Energy as my primary set and Electric Manipulation for my second. Energy has all this Knockback in it, and my Electric Fence is designed to root them to one place. Is there a good way to slot up Electric Fence so I can get more use out of it? Right now I use it for grins and giggles, or to slow down opponents when I retreat. Also, is Air Superiority a bad mix with Energy for the same Knockback reasons? My Charged Brawl seemed to work better, with its built-in chance to send the bad guy into convulsions for a couple seconds. I'm definitely getting hit a lot more often, so I have to take more downtime to heal up. Two yellow-cons give me trouble. The first is a Sky Raider Porter, so the teleporter of the group always goes down first. That's not a problem, but the second yellow-con starts whomping on me, and I have to use Hover finally, to stop getting knocked down. The range attacks he has are still putting a dent in me, though, and I have to use two green candies to keep me alive. I'm still not sure how much I like using Hover in combat, but I have it hot-keyed now, and that seems to help. Since I'm typing my adventures as I go now, the downtime doesn't wear on me either, but it probably would if I were playing only.
In the Striga warehouse, I knock a Council goon in-between the wall and a crate, and he's stuck there with his legs spread, he looks ridiculous, like Daffy Duck after one of his wild ideas backfired on him. I miss on an Energy Torrent, and two other white-cons whittle me down into the red, but I take them out and snipe a Galaxy. He's dead, but I still manage to fire my follow-up Power Bolt at him before he drops to the ground from my snipe. I wonder if the medical examiners ever comment about my over-kill. I figure I'll be able to handle the next two yellow-cons better, but they get me down to about the same red place, even though I use Hover from the get-go. I note that I did not have to use any Inspirations that time, though, so there is an improvement. I simply have to work on building in some Defense. Should I be looking at Tough and Weave, or Acrobatics? Ugh, leaping does not fit my character concept. Character concept was one of the most important elements of this character in particular, I'm not so choosy with most of my alts. Achieving a proper feeling of balance with this character may be the most challenging aspect so far, in relation to my other characters. Fun!
I have an idea! No wait...it's just gas.
Hellscorp
Entry 25
I decide to pull up Debt Leader on Victory server and give my level 10 Red/Dark Blast controller a whirl. I turn on Seek Team instantly. I've got a lame mission in King's Row, an impossible-to-solo CoT mish in Perez, and a mish deep in the heart of the Hollows. Even though I know better, I trot towards the Hollows. I know better than to go near those white rocks! Which doesn't help when they materialize right around me. Umm, pie in the hospital!
Switch tactics. I run to Steel Canyon to talk to the security chief, but there's no way I can handle them. So it's off to Skyway City to tackle Ogres. Yay! I start taking groups of two and three, white and yellow cons, which are pesky because they run away so much. Big, tough, green monsters. That's right, run away! Other higher levels keep running by, upping the cons a little too much, so I run up a wall to a neighboring territory and hunt there every time that happens.
I finally get a team invite for a group of 8 in Hollows, and one person has TP. It's all purple to me, even when I'm sidekicked. I try it anyway. I cast Accelerate Metabolism on everyone, and they all just stand there. I get just into view of one purple Caliban, take a boulder for the team, and back up. This stirs them to action, but no coordination. Someone asks, "Who do we assist?" There's only one scrap, no tank. "Assist the scrapper," I say. A blaster had just been boasting about how he's been playing since beta. Why isn't he telling the team this? Or the team leader? We pull through our first encounter okay, but for some reason a blaster decides to pull a massive mob that outnumbers us right down on top of us. I go out of my way to follow the "beta tester" around a little bit to heal him with my Radiant aura, but nobody ever talks. 6 of us bite the dust. They all lay there dead, while I goto hospy. I thank them for the team, and wish them luck, citing the purples as slightly above my head. I leave them all grousing about how close they are to travel powers and complaining about their massive debt levels.
I'm in the hospy in Skyway. Back to Troll hunting! I use my free respec to get rid of the embarrassing extra slot I put in Rest, and pick up Radiant Infection (RI) over Dark Pit. I use RI to take on a group of nine yellows at once. Nearly have it done, but I mix up which one I put the RI on and knock him out accidentally (pesky Trolls all look alike!). I launch RI on another one, get his last remaining neighbor down to one more sliver of health, and my luck gives out. I wake up in the hospy, while a hero who jumped right over me while I was still alive takes out the remaining two in the two seconds it takes for me to wake up in the hospy. Thanks a lot, buddy. I level up to 11 while I work off my debt, solo again. Sigh. Alone again, naturally. Sometimes it really is for the best.
I have an idea! No wait...it's just gas.
Hellscorp
Outside the Journal Commentary
There was a comment made that there were very few MA/SR Guides available, especially after the Issue Updates, so for those who are interested, I introduce:
Martial Arts / Super Reflexes - The Advanced Guide
by yours truly. Now don't say I never give you nothing!
I have an idea! No wait...it's just gas.
Hellscorp