Official Discussion: Issue 10 Invasion
By
Aztec_Mummy,
Posted on: 2007-07-24 17:57 in News, Events and Announcement Discussion
First post after a re... ah, forget it.
I've only played I10 on the Live servers, so it's all new and exciting for me. Even so, I think that I10 is probably the BEST ISSUE EVAH released for CoH.
<ul type="square">[*] It offers a smorgasboard of new PvE content[*] The redesigned Rikti look awesome [*] There is a heap of things to do[*] It progresses the storyline (finally!)[*] It provides a continuous co-op zone at the top end of the lvl range[*] The new costume pieces look fantastic[*] The Rikti zone attacks add in a layer of threat / challenge to CoH/V that hasn't been seen in a long while[/list]
The only negative is the crippling lag in RWZ.
Overall: a fantastic issue. Good luck topping it with I11! :-)
The lag is incredible. I had 1-2 sec delays on power activations--those that I could see animated, anyway.
I like the lighting side effect on the city. The zone looks a lot better without the glowing blue back drop.
The Rikti heavy armors look very nice. I'd like to see some of that filter into the costume creator.
Teams are the number one killer of soloists.
I know a redname already gave us the long story about the Red warning messages, but I hope this remains a top priority to "fix." It becomes very hard to keep up with team/coalition/global chat windows when you're getting bombarded with red messages every couple minutes. It's especially frustrating when you have extra tabs set (i.e. one for Wentworths) and then it appears you have messages, but you go and see it's just red spam.
Supremely annoying. I found myself becoming quite irritable and had to just hang it up for the night as I was getting snappish with my team.
The lag is really painful, zone loading is obnoxious, and I'm missing the bombing runs just trying to get to the zones. Maybe if it was more often then every 3 hours people wouldn't be jumping to get to those zones so badly.
I liked how it was on test myself, more staggered over the 3 hour windows then all at once and a lot more frequent.
Nevermind once the rikti start porting in and the lag becomes unrealistic, I was getting a slide show just now in KR, everyone was. I'd lower the amount of people per zone for the duration of this.
There are some nice things in the issue, but I can't help but focus on the things that are making it unfun and near impossible to play.
The red admin spam is really ruining the game. I can't keep track of conversations with the sheer volume of admin spam.
I also find the bomb effects with massive shaking of the screen is making it very hard for me to play. I understand that sure, they'd blow up, but there's no need for that level of shaking.
The lag is horrible. I am really trying to do things, but I can hit a button, say to heal a team, and by the time it goes off, everyone else is dead. One attack in a 3 minute fight is just wrong.
The first thing the popped into mind when I saw the Vanguard logo was that it looked just like Major Glory of Justice Friends (ala Dexter's Laboratory). I wasn't able to google a good image for comparison purposes, though.
Teams are the number one killer of soloists.
Honestly... I do love what I've seen of I10 so far... Except for the lag. I was up to 10-15 SECONDS at one point to make a single shot! That, to me, is unacceptable. No, I won't leave the game, not a chance... But I will likely avoid all of the Event stuff. And 30 people blasting at a Drop Ship over 10 minutes and doing NOTHING to it is also a bit much. In that time I've (with a team) scragged two Paladins in a row...
A possible suggestion is to cap how many people can enter a zone to a number that the system can handle. I know that'll tick people off, but hey, its something. Then set things so two zones get hit on either side (hero/villain) at the same time and divide the swarm again. 
<QR>
I love the new content I have seen so far. The new mission skins are great.
Lag, well thats nothing new when a new issue is released.
My biggest pet peeve is the new sonic graphics. I have no problems with cast able shields but sonic dispersion isn't the greatest change. The sine waves are fine but the static effect when it pulses makes it where I can't see anything. If you all can remove that it would be great.
So this issue is all about how the Fifth Column return, right?
My only current problem with the new content is player related, not system. I worked hard to level my PB to 35 to fight his right alien enemies, but all I see are 50's getting together without the want to even Sk/Lk others...sigh. I have 3 50s myself, but Ill break them out later.
Pros Great Content--promote writer/developer of missions/tfs. On second thought keep them where they belong...enhancing this game. Just allow casual wear for motivation to continue on.
Cons Huge pile of complaints about lag or other game play (ie. I can move etc but powers won't work properly). Waiting on initial surge of "new", once population dies down in zones etc will be curious to see if it gets better.
Thank you.
Oh YEAH.
===SPOILER ALERT===
We loved Hero1. Your decision with his fate was uncool. I haven't been this sad since they nailed Rorschach in the end.
"Oh NO! I'm so sorry baba! you and your wife will be sorely missed...s#@!, i did it again, didn't I?" - mintmiki
Animal Farm ID:71800
When Alts Collide: 134432
I like most everything, with 2 complaints:
1) Why is the new SF not for 40-45 or 40-50? Villains have NOTHING 40-45, which, I think, combined with the lack of a "straightforward" TF like many of the hero ones, results in a very serious dearth of the SF reward recipes.
2) The [Admin] BSNAOTOEHCG&#*&<$(*&(*&UE*EU SPAM SPAM SPAMALOT junk is really, really, really annoying. It shows up in every single one of my tabs. Screwing up all kinds of stuff I'm watching. People complained about it all through beta, and I know it's a pain to change, but it's even more of a pain to deal with. Please fix ASAP.
Other than that, good work so far.
Guides: Dark Armor and IOs | SS/DA | Crabbing | Fortunata
I love this issue! I had lots of fun on test server, i absoluletly LOVE the psi defence-my rock tank thanks you from the bottom of his stone cold heart 
The other temp powers are really cool as well and i like that you need to play in that zone to earn medallions, i think this will make it a permenant busy zone besides the fact it is a co-op zone.
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We would love to hear your feedback of Issue 10 Invasion.
[/ QUOTE ]
I really, really like all of the content in Issue 10. I really really hate the stupid lag.
And I wonder why you guys even bother asking us for feedback anymore.
1) I10 testing we complained about the big lag problem. And go live with the lag problem it did.
2) We complained about the admin spam. Here's a clue: Do you really think my Brute cares if Atlas Park is being invaded? I'm in the middle of a conversation with my friends and/teammates but that gets crowded out by the huge levels of spam that happens all at once. And it went live with the Admin spam anyway.
3) Complained about the numerous bugs and/or problems with Issue 9. Cause I really love the PuGs slowing down even further. When you only have 4 slots for recipes (or whatever low number) and people have to run empty their tray after every single mission it slows stuff down. This discourages teaming. "Oh but it's optional. You can just ignore it if you want to." And they went live with the tiny on character storage and tiny vault storage and the bugged sets and the ridiculously small bonuses and miniscule % costume drops and all the other problems that the testers had with it, but they just went ahead and went live with it anyway.
I could go on for a long time, but you get my point.
So my question is: Why bother asking these questions if you're not going to at least pretend to care about our answers?
I checked and didn't see a "Know Issues" thread. Well if there is I'm sorry I didn't find it in my search.
So far 1 problem I see so far is that whenever I load into a mission all of my toggles are off. Not one or two but ALL toggles. As a Stalker this can be bothersome if I load into an area and have a ambush while I load.
Entropy: Not just a fad, it's the future!
To YOU I'm an atheist. To God, I'm the Loyal Opposition.
Photons have mass!? I didn't even know they were Catholic...
I like everything but the surfbords the Rikti keep hitting me with. They look lame.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
We would love to hear your feedback of Issue 10 Invasion.
[/ QUOTE ]
I really, really like all of the content in Issue 10. I really really hate the stupid lag.
And I wonder why you guys even bother asking us for feedback anymore.
1) I10 testing we complained about the big lag problem. And go live with the lag problem it did.
2) We complained about the admin spam. Here's a clue: Do you really think my Brute cares if Atlas Park is being invaded? I'm in the middle of a conversation with my friends and/teammates but that gets crowded out by the huge levels of spam that happens all at once. And it went live with the Admin spam anyway.
3) Complained about the numerous bugs and/or problems with Issue 9. Cause I really love the PuGs slowing down even further. When you only have 4 slots for recipes (or whatever low number) and people have to run empty their tray after every single mission it slows stuff down. This discourages teaming. "Oh but it's optional. You can just ignore it if you want to." And they went live with the tiny on character storage and tiny vault storage and the bugged sets and the ridiculously small bonuses and miniscule % costume drops and all the other problems that the testers had with it, but they just went ahead and went live with it anyway.
I could go on for a long time, but you get my point.
So my question is: Why bother asking these questions if you're not going to at least pretend to care about our answers?
[/ QUOTE ]
<---Clicky
All else aside, the lag during Invasions is game-killing.
The awesome work the Dev team has done on all the rest of I10 is flushed away by this. Two friends and I were present at an Invasion event in AP last night on Liberty server at approx 11pm EST. It was torturous.
Some powers took anywhere from 30 - 40 seconds to activate, some never activated at all, yet some powers went off flawlessly as soon as the button was clicked. Previously unactivated powers returned a "recharging" message when clicked, movement was hampered - the whole affair was a crowded, laggy slideshow. No, it's not my PC (trust me).
I was teamed with one friend who was experiencing the same issues. The other friend was having so much trouble that he couldn't even join us in the crowd. Oddly enough, throughout the whole thing, chat was working just fine.
I honestly don't know what could be done to fix this, but it's something that should really be looked into.
Omega Zim - lvl 50 Rad/Dark/Power Defender, Alpha Zim - lvl 50 Tri-form Peacebringer
Theta Zim - lvl 50 Tri-form Warshade, Nightshade Zim - lvl 50 Dark/Dark/Psi Defender
Omicron Zim - lvl 50 Emp/Psi/Power Defender, Scrappy Joe - lvl 50 MA/SR Scrapper
COMPLETELY
AND
INCREDIBLY
AWSOME!!!!!!!
This is the reason I play City of Heroes!!! The alerts fire up in chat, impending attacks on a zone, you scramble to the zone with your SG or a rapidly created team, you get off the tram and you see ship after alien ship dropping bombs, Ritki battling heroes on the streets, dozens to hundreds of heroes, tightly grouped, pouring every power they have to fight; healers going full bore, tankers slamming Heavy Armor into the air, flying blasters chasing the drop ships . . . .this is an event that will be talked of for years to come.
The cameraderie and teaming was incredible! The lag was amazing, but still the fights were epic. Fighting under the Atlas statue with over a hundred heroes with Ritki swarming all over the dais was a screenshot epoch unto itself.
Devs, NC Soft, LH and all - DAMN GOOD JOB!!! I have waited for something of this caliber for decades, and you have delivered. Cudos, medals and "atta boys" all around. Thank You!
If I haven't made it plain enough, CoH/V is the BEST!!!
I'll have to open with a quote I heard echo numerous times on broadcast yesterday after one of the invasions:
"This game just keeps getting better and better"
[u]Highlights:[u]
-The new Rikti look amazing, as do the ships. This got a lot of praise in general.
-The hero/villain co-op delivers on what players have wanted for some time now, and was very nice. Now I'm able to run missions with both my hero and villain side SGs, and not feel like I'm missing anything.
-The presentation of the invasions, and actual process is done very well. I was very impressed with my first experience. I and a few other players scrambled, then gathered at random to battle the Rikti invasion in the streets, holding off and taking down dozens of enemies before an eventual two elite bosses spawned, that also saw their fate. Broadcast went crazy with players trying to mobilize, and for the first time, Mercy Island chat was interesting to read. :P To note, the GM scale was a great idea, as the higher ups could venture back to the lower lvls to assist.
-The new costumes look great, and I'm glad that some were added for free.
I have to check out a few more of the details and shift through more of the patch notes, but all in all, there is loads of content to stay busy with now, as IOs, new strike forces, and the invasion have become available. Hats off to the dev team and those associated, as they've met a new level of immersion, while the rest of the content has added a good deal of longevity to the title.
Glad I upgraded my graphic card, too. Running the game at full graphical setting, with no slowdown at all, is amazing. 
Played on Infinity last night. It was a fun experience talking to the big group of heroes under Atlas as we waited for the Ritki to show.
But once they did it was horrendous. Lag was so bad that I was getting attacks off every 30 to 60 seconds if at all. I finally just logged off as it was just unplayable.
I just hope it can be fixed.
[ QUOTE ]
My biggest pet peeve is the new sonic graphics. I have no problems with cast able shields but sonic dispersion isn't the greatest change. The sine waves are fine but the static effect when it pulses makes it where I can't see anything. If you all can remove that it would be great.
[/ QUOTE ]
/signed
I was thoroughly enjoying the wonderful new content until our team had a Sonics toon join. After a few minutes, the static effect was enough to make my eyes hurt quite badly. The static is too dense and you literally can not see what you are fighting. Combine that with the dreadful sounds of sonics, and it a headache and a half waiting to happen. But I guess I can avoid teaming with any sonics because of it.
Beyond that, the invasion event is truly spectacular. Well done!
Shard Warrior - 50 MA/Regen/BM Scrapper
Founding Member and Leader : Shadow-Force
Co-Leader: Council of Heroes
"Whatever evils come this way... we will be there to stop them."
For me whole highlight of the issue was the fixing Jack Frost. Everything else I could care less about. This is a huge leap in finally perfecting the pet classes in this game. If what was learned in fixing him can be applied to the other pets we could have something. IMO this is what needs to be done.
Trollers and Doms should get pets at level 12 or level 18 that way you dont struggle to level 32. Animate Stone needs to be redone his AI should be just a copy paste of Jack Frost with the names of the powers changed so that he cycles his attacks better. He should also get a third melee attack so he can not just be waiting on an attack to recharge. For mind controllers the AI of confuse entities needs a slight tweak. Since most of the people here would scream and threaten to quit if mind control ever got a pet then the next alternative is change confuse AI. Make it so the mob once confused if there are no other mobs around it will follow the caster of the confuse as if he were a pet but not one. This would make it easier to clear spawns without actually giving mind control a pet and once you get to the end of the mission you just kill that one guy and that is it. Singularity should be give propel to make up for all the low damage it does that is all smashing. Fly trap should be made totally range and given impale instead of its melee chomp.
For masterminds it is a sensitive issue because making the AI more aggressive like Jack Frost 2.0 would mean they would die more from AoEs. Well I think that is a choice that should be made by the mastermind. Giving 3 options, range, melee, and mixed mode(default). If this is just too much to do then just change the most damaging tier of the melee pets AI to be similar to jack frost 2.0(Jounin, Bruiser, Grave Knights). With these changes pet would be almost perfect.
The only negatives so far with issue 10 has just been the unbearable lag. It just does not make sense because the RWZ is not at all graphically intensive as grandville but it plays alot worse especially the Vanguard base.
Bump and Grind Bane/SoA
Kenja No Ishi Earth/Empathy Controller
Legendary Sannin Ninja/Pain Mastermind
Entoxicated Ninja/PSN Mastermind
Ninja Ryukenden Kat/WP Scrapper
Hellish Thoughts Fire/PSI Dominator
Thank You Devs for Merits!!!!
Well I was only able to participate in two zone invasions before I had to sign off.
In both cases, I was my level 30 EM/ELA Brute. I got to say it was a lot of fun. It was nice seeing so many people working together.
Very nice.
My biggest complaint (and its not really a big one) is that I wish the enemies were harder to fight. I mean perhaps it was because there were dozens of villains pounding on each enemy so he had no chance (and I know the game treats the Rikti as gm and so scales them/us) but at no point in time whatsoever did I feel omg, we can barely stem the tide, this is going to be close, hang in there
To say this differently, the Rikti had no chance and so the attack did not feel like this momentous struggle. It was one sided (ours).
I realize that as the newness wears off and hence less players respond to the defense call, there will be more bad guys per hero/villain.
But as it is, right now, its like no contest (our favor).
Oh, and I was on Justice around 9:30 p.m. eastern time. The lag was NOT that bad and I was in a team of about 8 both times, surrounded by about a dozen (or more other players).
I am aware that many factors go into lag so perhaps I was lucky (though I did fight in two different zones) but my feeling is that before everyone panics about the lag, give it a week or so for the excitement to die down. I mean last night everyone and their sister was on trying out the stuff. In a sense, it was worse than double xp because you had people concentrating in a small area. But time will fix half the problem.
And again, nice job.
We would love to hear your feedback of Issue 10 Invasion.
The skies over Paragon City are filled with dark grey thunderheads. It is the same in the Rogue Isles, Europe, and across the globe. Small ships dart through the heavy weather and there are so very many of them.
The Rikti have returned.
Rikti World Invasion
Issue 10 begins with a World Event that spans across numerous zones in both Paragon City and the Rogue Isles, as the Rikti return in devastating waves. They are armed with new, brutal weapons and seek to establish a beachhead on Earth, presumably to save their lost brethren and to finish what they started the first time the destruction of Earth!
Rikti War Zone (Levels 35 50)
The site of the crashed Rikti mother ship has become a hot War Zone. Pylons of unknown purpose have appeared around the mother ship, and Rikti presence is extremely heavy. In an attempt to contain the Rikti from breaking out of the area or launching their ship, the government has cordoned off the zone, allowing only select agents access. Government officials have turned the region over to Vanguard, and given them the authority to recruit forces from across the world. This zone is open to both Heroes and Villains, in their combined, desperate struggle to hold the front lines against the second Rikti Invasion.
New Threats
Rikti Pylons are multi-purpose warning and attack devices that surround the crashed mother ship. It takes a concerted effort to take one of these pylons down, but once enough of these are destroyed, access to the ship may be granted. UXBs, unexploded bombs that arm, power up, and detonate if not stopped in time, provide a constant threat. Rikti destroyers zip through zones dropping troops, UXBs, and Rikti Assault Suits.
New Inventions
The Vanguard base contains a special Vanguard Workbench that will allow for special costume pieces (tied to Rikti War Zone recipes). Vanguard Support Machines (Heavies) can be requisitioned using Special Salvage (unique to the War Zone). These Heavies function as powerful pets.
New Missions
The first missions in the Rikti War Zone are for characters level 35+. The characters meet a new contact, Levantera, who introduces them to the U.N. security force, Vanguard. Theyll also meet Borea, who sends them on several repeatable missions in the zone. From there, characters meet contact Serpent Drummer, Gaussian, and also talk to the Dark Watcher and learn one of the darkest secrets of Paragon City.
Rikti Co-op Task Force
The Rikti Co-Op Task Force is available for both Heroes and Villains. It is for 6 to 8 players, level 45 50. The mission is given out by Lady Grey, leader of the Vanguard. Co-operative missions create a new layer of depth and story as heroes and villains work toward a common goal.
What is your experience so far with Issue 10? What would you change? What do you love?
Please keep feedback constructive.
Thank you,
Ex Libris