Discussion: City of Heroes 6 Year Anniversary Celebration!

It was ok , laggy and upsetting to say the least . Did not care for the Team having to get 10% of the damage on a GM considering the lagg and amount of people crammed into one area , but overall ok . Wednesday will be insane to say the least . Did get the Mako badge on my only 50 , and fought LR twice but did not get the badge , but oh well such is life ......

I would just like to say thanks for the event, whilst the lag was annoying, I still think that it was worth it and therefore thanks go out to the devs/mods (especially mod08 ). Spawning 40 odd winter lords in Talos was just awesome (let alone a nice merit boost ).

Again thanks, would be nice if the lag could be sorted for the next one, however, I will definitely be attending the next one.

Sparks (happy that he now has a yellow title for 30 days )

Had a blast on Liberty, Hami in Cap was epic. Reishman x2 was way too much @_@
Did 2 toons in Atlas & 2 in Cap. Lag was bad in Atlas. Only got a few screenshots http://unmei.us/coh/6thevent/

Yea, my client crashed twice, and I'm running with a good rig too.

Played on Justice.

The lag was par for the course, not any worse than Ritki Invasions or Halloween Zombies. My system did finally crash during the last 10 minutes of the event (even after exiting/refreshing the game to switch toons).

I died several times on my defender, so ended up tagging folks in the hospital with sb/id (since I was there so much anyway, lol). The multiple versions of the AV's was overwhelming at times (seriously, 5-7 of GW, Sirc, Scorp, & Mako... all at once). There were times when the entire hill would suddenly be covered with orange hero names.

Nevertheless, I managed to still get several badges and lots of yummy merits. So, overall... I'm sassified.

Played in Pinnacle, FUN FUN time was had. We never got a Kronos though, which made us all sad pandas, but we did have krakens...krakii? Whatever the plural would be, and what we either dubbed as a murder of babbages or a gaggle of babbages. The only time the lag got REALLY bad was towards the end when we were all in SC and a Rikti invasion went off while we were fighting a half dozen av's/gm's.

Played on Liberty, and oh yeah, the lag was so bad, I felt like I was on my old rig during a Rikti invasion - last Rikti invasion I was in was a few weeks after getting my new rig, and it went as smooth as glass.

At one point, coming back from the hospital, I was hovering just in front of Miss Liberty and took in the scene in front of me. Over to my right was the swarm of players taking on a number of Jacks, Enochais, and other assorted baddies. To the front, there was a platton of Winter Lords ready to strike. To my left, there was a platoon of Babbage. Then, just off in the distance between the two was a platton of Adamasters.

Any other day, I think All-American Teen would have taken one look at it and said "To heck with this. You know, Aruba is nice this time of year."

Victory, redside, 7p - 10p Eastern.

The news post here on the forums told people to gather in Atlas, Talos, or Cap; the red admin message at 7p told people the event was in Atlas or Mercy, which caused some confusion / annoyance.

Other than the one initial message, there was no further communication. If someone had been a few moments late logging in, or switching characters, and logged into Cap as instructed to find nothing happening, they may well have concluded that the event was canceled or broken. (Eventually a somewhat forlorn Eochai was found in Cap, wandering in the water vaguely near the black market; we took it out while assembling a 3rd team nearly two hours later, but nothing further happened.)

The main (only?) action was in Mercy. Initially, the zone was tagged for a standard zombie invasion (red sky, automated spawns on people / groups outside, etc.) There was a decent-sized group near the upper arbiter, and we slogged through zombies for a bit despite there being not much point to it.

Eventually someone shouted in broadcast that they'd seen Eochai over near the fateweaver, and we got folks moving in that direction. Nothing much seemed to be there, so folks milled about shooting zombies some more until someone discovered that the spawns were over on the main street leading from the starting Arachnos base, about 500 yards SW of Kalinda. People gathered there, and as far as we could tell that's where the action was for the rest of the night. At least it was reasonably convenient to the "hospital" in the starting area.

At some point soon after showing up, there was someone handing out yellow anniversary temp titles. It wasn't clear if this was repeated, but if so only intermittently.

We still had zombies running for the first part of this, but eventually they cleared and didn't reappear. The "special" spawns appeared to be in an approximate pattern; I'm not sure I've got the sequence right but the following should give you the general idea of the combinations.

* Eochai (Halloween event version; Hallow Spirit badge, merits) and Jack in Irons (Halloween event version; Iron Warrior badge, merits)
* Winter Lord (Winter event version; Frozen Fury badge, merits)
* Caleb (HellBane badge; merits)
* Deathsurge (sometimes along with another one; Surging badge, merits)
* Quarry and Stropharia (no badges or merits for either)
* Lattice and Thorn (no badges or merits for either)
* Some combination of the Freedom Phalanx, usually two at a time but we did get the full crew at least once. Only appearing were the 6 that comprise the Blackguard badge, from Recluse's Victory: Manticore (Deadeye badge), Back Alley Brawler (Uppercut badge), Positron (Destroyer badge), Sister Psyche (Interrogator badge), Synapse (Breakneck badge), Statesman (Oppressor badge). Plus the Blackguard badge for eventually getting the full set of 6.

The usual "team must do 10% to get credit" rules were in effect, so unless you got unusually lucky with teaming, you'd generally need to go through several iterations to get the badges; my odds seem to be somewhere between 1 in 2 and 1 in 3 for getting the badge after a defeat.

I had the available badges earned on my first toon by about 8p, call it 45 or so minutes of fighting after the initial confusion and zombies. Switched, and my second went better (possibly because she was a DP/Dark and control-clicked Twilight Grasp), getting things in about 30 minutes or so. Shortly thereafter, as I was about to switch toons, the above list stopped being spawned, and we got a peculiar Rikti non-invasion.

IIRC the sky didn't change color, and we were getting the ship raid version of things (level 53 and 54, did NOT count for the invasion badges). It went OK for a bit, and then spawning in at least a half-dozen each level 54 Heavy Assault Suits and Rikti Priests, along with a bunch of Magi and lesser stuff, caused what was basically our first zone wipe. People were hospitaling, coming back, and getting blasted again. Eventually folks regrouped enough and kept slogging; the problem was that there were no real rewards for this; no badges, no badge credit, no merits, and little exp. Once it became clear that we couldn't get credit for anything, I took a bit of a break and switched characters again.

We ended up gradually forming a team in Cap (of people who had parked there because that's what the instructions said) to take down the solitary Eochai, and then headed to Mercy. By now a bit after 9p, and the Rikti were gone and it was back to the above rotation. The third team was mostly lower level, and although we had a 50 leading, we were having problems getting enough damage through to get credit; I only got about half the badges in the remaining not quite an hour.

Overall feedback:

* The lack of communication was annoying. When I switched characters, I'd run into people that had no idea anything was happening, or where they should go. Having a red admin message every 15 minutes or so, at least every 30, with instructions for which zone(s) and approximately where people should gather, would have been a really good idea. Telling people to meet in a zone that wasn't being used was a really *bad* idea. While the spot picked wasn't bad in terms of being generally near the starting base "hospital" yet out of sight of the base to avoid disrupting new characters, etc. picking a spot that had no distinguishing landmarks to gather around or tell people to head toward wasn't the best plan.

* Despite being billed as an interactive event, there didn't seem to be much interactivity going on. The vast majority of the time, it might as well have been scripted on a timer; if there really was someone live there, they may as well have been clicking on their "spawn next monster clump" macro every few minutes while they caught up on their reading or whatever. To the best of my recollection, none of the foes did anything to indicate they weren't under routine AI control; no speech, no dancing, no responding to the few players trying to interact with them (calling out specific members of the Freedom Phalanx, etc.). Additionally, there didn't seem to usually be any sense of theme, malice, or whimsy in the spawns and placement, just rote cycling through the predetermined monster list. The oversized high-power Rikti spawn *may* have been in response to the people asking for a Flier or Dropship, or just random chance.

Last year, it was far more interesting (although somewhat harder to find); moments like taking on three Ghost Widows and a Kronos Titan spawned in on top of the Atlas Globe I'll be remembering for as long as I play the game, but this year will probably fade to "I got some alts a few obscure badges in exchange for some debt".

very fun event, only one small complaint,wish that it happened after I17 went live, so could do it in ULTRA MODE

Way to go and ruin another event Devs. Only one zone for the event so everyone is locked out? City of Fail.

Said thought here. I was excited about this even, then found I couldn't participate because only the first instance of each zone could participate and it filled up in a matter of seconds. There were three instances up to, so more people were left out than could participate. VERY poorly planned and this has quite ruined my night.

Its so laggy...you can't even tell if you are fighting. And when my powers finally got off it crashed me!

if what just happened in the Freedom server is how you guys do events and stuff around here then i already have my answer to why theres only few people left playing this

Very fun event. Got about 100 merits in about an hour. Didn't have the lag that some people are complaining about, but I set my graphic settings to low when the event was in progress. Completed Blackguard on my villain and might have to wait till next year to get Justiciar on him or I could become a hero, then switch back to a vigilante or rogue.

While the server "fun" on the Freedom server may have been a good idea on paper, there has to be a better way. For instance I had the graphics option turned down to mimimum, have (what I feel is) a pretty decent internet connection (FiOS) and a computer that runs fine normally.....I was lagging and was kicked off the server as well. The thing with the GM's, AV's and "zone events" being contained to mainly 2 zones causes the vast majority of the players to congregate and causes severe lag spikes. The one thing that caused essentially "flash mobs" in a given zone. I know I am ranting here and I do not know if others feel the same way, however I am not saying that this was a terrible idea, I am saying that it needs to be reworked.

Anyone have a time frame for CST as to When Issue 17 will be live. Don't wanna get up at 7 or 8 in the morning just to find it won't be out to the afternoon.

Even with the lag, I had fun. Got 1 Rikti badge, and 4 of the 5 AV badges. Had fun pointing out how it looked like a Winter Lord was trying to swin in the decorative pool after we defeated him.

However, the one LOL moment I had was when a large number of us zoned from Steel to Talos (or was it the other way around?) at the tram. Just seeing about 2-3 dozen heroes rush the door as soon as the gate opened was hilarious.

I have to say, my experience on Freedom today was an extreme opposite of my experience on Justice yesterday.

I did not enjoy the Freedom experience at all.

I had more fun with the multiple-AV-spawn-all-at-once death fest on Justice than I did with the soft-glove-single-spawn-per-30-mins lag fest on Freedom.

The thing is, the OMG-there-are-FIVE-(seven?)-of-EACH-AV tactic actually WORKS for these reasons:

• Multiple AV's allow for more opportunities for more people to actually get in on a fight... ie, get some damage in (more badgies for everyone).
• Multiple AVs (or the GM "I win" button) cause mass death, which creates a forced cycle of heroes, giving alternating teams more opportunities to get in on a fight... ie, get some damage in (more badgies for everyone).
• Multiple AVs causes the massive mob of heroes to break up, which reduces lag (lag is still there, but it IS reduced), which allows folks to... get some damage in (more badgies for - you get the idea).

• Not enough AV spawns. There were several pathetic Ritki spawns scattered about, and a few extra monster spawns, but not nearly enough AVs. I don't think I saw more than a dozen heroes actually die. I died once, on my lvl 19 'troller, near the end of the event.
• Only one or two AV spawns at a time. Not enough to break up the massive mob of heroes all trying to pound on the same AV(s), which only exasperated the lag.
• Not enough spawns in ALL ZONE INSTANCES. If you were unlucky enough to land in a 2nd, 3rd, or (dog forbid) 4th zone instance, you were pretty much SOL for spawns.
• Titles were given out haphazardly at best. At the end of the event, we were told we could pick up a title at Pocket D, of which there were 4 instances. Instead of the Dev/GMs rotating through the instances, we were left guessing & chasing our tails trying to figure out where the Dev/GM was that was passing them out.
• Communication was ... sparse... to put it nicely.