Returning Player Diary

people just don't use the LFG tool
they form a team in /help and then start when they have a team

the tool works fine, players just won't use it

step 1: get rid of TO's and DO's
step 2: change SO's to just Enhancements that work for everyone
step 3: rename them what they do - accuracy, etc

they give out SO's in DfB so they obviously are not that worried about balance issues.

I think the TO -> DO -> SO progression is valid in itself, even if most people dont bother with TOs beyond those they pick up. But the "origin" part of the D/SOs does not really add any interesting complexity. It just makes finding stores and buying enhancements more annoying.
And the "lore" part does not hold up when generic IOs are mixed in anyway.

So I would suggest to have Training/Practice/Master Origin enhancements, with straightforward names, available to all origins.


And since you are a VIP, you could also do the first redside SSA as that is 10-20. You will not be able to choose the V-merit from it if you have not done a morality mission however.

ALT-ITIS!

Today's market sale on Beast Run inspired a purchase, and of course when I've got a new shiny that calls for a new character.

enter WereBot!
What happens when a Clockwork servitor gets bitten by a werewolf?

AAAAAAAAARR...*bzzzt**click*...ROOOOOooooOOOOOOooo!!

claws/invuln heroic brute.

Having fun running missions with him- oddly, I've never played a claws anything to a meaningful level.

Crazy old goat!

Since you have taken the dive into the land of VIP, you may want to consider leveling up by way of alignment missions and the Signature Story Arcs.

I would recommend reinforcing your alignment, so if you start as a hero, choose hero tips, or villain tips for villains. And complete your set of 10 alignments and one morality mission before starting the SSAs. Why? Well, the first time through the alignment missions you will get a few badges, 50 merits, and start a timer toward getting a nifty temp power in 7 days (as long as you keep that alignment).

While you get all that if you go vigilante or rogue as well, being "reinforced" as a hero or villain before doing the SSAs means that you get alignment merits for completing the arcs. The first time a character completes an SSA arc it gets a guaranteed a-merit. After that, you have a week-long timer between collecting another A-merit.

So, let's say you complete the alignment and all 7 SSAs in one week. That's 50 reward merits and 7 alignment merits along with all the other XP and drops you might find along the way. You could also convert those reward merits, with 20 million influence, into an additional a-merit for a total of 8.

Alignment merits can then be traded in for just about any IO recipe. One single merit can get you a single recipe from a list that includes most IOs. Two a-merits will get you any of the non-purple, non-PvP uniques and procs like LoTG, Numina, Perf. Shifter, etc. Twenty to thirty a-merits gets purples and PvP recipes.

The alignment missions themselves are better than old content. Consider them new and improved radio/newspaper missions. There are approximately 100 missions split up by side and level bands.

The SSAs are top shelf content. While some arcs are better written or have a tighter plot, there is nothing else that can match it for story, AND map selection, AND mechanics.

Since I know goats love shiny things, I thought you might enjoy new content that also has great rewards that can be further parlayed in the market.

that's a good idea, I think I'll try it out as I've already run the new hero side lowbie stuff a few times. I played the first SSA episode and liked it- I need to finish it off so I can argue with Sam Tow about how much he hated the story. =P

I can say without fear that anyone on the internet would disagree with me, that among the tip missions are the best missions in the game. And playing the tip missions until you start to repeat, is the most interesting and diverse content in the game.

My favorite tip missions actually were the Hero -> Vigilante ones, as I felt most of them really captured the moral difference between things like "rescue the policeman and let the Big Bad Guy escape" and "let the policeman suffer, its part of what he signed up for, and capture the Big Bad because his next plan is probably to blow up an orphanage". The Rogue ones weren't as stark a difference, I thought, because they revolved around villian = interested in fame vs. rogue = interested in money. Which explains a lot about the priority seemingly given to CoH's marketing department, but that's another topic.

A note about the queue times you may see for trial type things, since its not obvious. They always show short times, because as another person mentioned, most people form teams big enough to meet the minimum THEN join a queue. Thus they go right in, and the "average" wait time the system calculates is highly weighted by the fast entry pre-formed majority.

Thanks for putting this together, Goat, it's been a good read.

On the subject of tip missions - I agree that they're pretty good content. I've been known to take a toon or two full circle, and that's fun...seeing the different sides of the same tips as you choose the four different alignment options is pretty cool. My only real complaint is that there's not enough variety at the high levels. For anyone 40+, they're all the same missions over and over. Especially bad if you're maintaining alignment and re-running hero/villain regularly.

Morning Radios With My Son

Had a little time while the wife was out running errands this morning & hopped in while my son was reading in his room. He ambled out after a bit & climbed up in my lap to "see what I was doing".


Opened the contact window to call in and he pointed and asked "Who's that green guy?"
"That's Julius the Troll."
"He's not the one who tricked us."
Surprised he still remembered, I said "No, he's not the one who tricked us."

I get a radio & we head across Steel Canyon. At some point we cross the border for Blyde Square, and he announces "I LIKE this music!"
As the Blyde theme is probably my favorite musical cue in the game, I laugh and agree.

We head into the mission, and run smack into a Gardvord.

"Hey!" he shouts. "LOOK dada, it's Julius the Troll!"
"It sure looks like him, doesn't it...but this guy is a mean troll."
"Then we'll just have to BONK him!"
"Okay!"

I'm playing SilverRage, ("look Dada, he gots a FIN on his head!") and my son develops such a fondness for Sweeping Cross every time I get 3 combo points light up the orange circle he demands "DADA! USE THAT ONE!"

We clear the mission and head out- on our way to the next we aggro a group of Outcasts, who fascinate him with their different elemental attacks. The first spawn wasn't very tough, so all the way to the next mission he was steering us into other groups of them so he could get a better look.

"I call that guy ROCK HEAD!"
"Look Dada, it's ICE GUY again!"

Every time I left a mission he wanted to go see the "crazy statue guy" by the trainers. It's heartening to see he already shares my interest in other player's characters- whenever we saw one he demanded to know who they were and what they did.


Not the most efficient way to get to 15, but the pure entertainment value nicely compensated for the lack of speed.

It's particularly fun to read your account of playing with your son on your lap.

You do know he's going to want his own account in a couple of years?

quick note before I forget: logged in my zombie MM to check his traps, my son took a liking to him and wanted us to "run him around the city". Activated Beast Run, he says "Oh! he's a WILD GUY! I like that!"


we ended up where those ghosts hang out in Port Oakes.

Stirred up a bit bunch, and he says about our "zombie friends"-

"THEY know what to do- GROSS THEM OUT!"