Returning Player Diary

A change of pace for this thread- inspired by the release of I23 I've actually checked out a bit of Incarnate content. It's a system I haven't actively avoided, but neither have I sought it out. It ended up being sort of like Praetoria- I was interested before release, but the actuality didn't inspire me.

But while fiddling with and poking around my various characters, I discovered Paraleghell, my fire/ice blaster, has an unlocked Alpha slot. It's empty and I don't recall unlocking it, but there it sits.


So I figured hey, why not check out this new contact on my list, Belladonna Vetrano. My highest level Praetorean is like 13, so I'm not that invested in the whole storyline, but figure it ought to be fun to run Paraleghell through his paces- he's the only blaster (other than my ar/dev pre-ED) that I've enjoyed playing.




Full report later!

a couple of 'WTH, Blasters!' threads over the last while have me thinking a bit about what's wrong with the AT & thus playing my (few) blasters a bit more. Paraleghell I mentioned above- he'll be my incarnate stalking horse to see if I can get into the system at all.

My ar/dev Big Payback is basically "finished", I dragged him to 50, dropped multiple billions on a l337 IO build, softcapped him to ranged and if it didn't quite make him the killing machine he was back in the day, it at least bumped him up to "not lame".

Which leaves Psicops, my psi/psi blaster. I made him back when the set released because I had a notion- I'd always wanted to use the 'third eye' face from the costume creator, I'd always wanted an excuse to the PPD chest emblem, and with Psi it all came together- a PPD beat cop who 'awakened' to his psychic potential but still stayed on the payroll.

I got him up to 20 before my hiatus, and while he was the beneficiary of a comically huge market windfall while I was kitting out his enhancements I hadn't played him much.

Until now!

So, with enhancements slotted I opened the contact window and hit 'find'.
The changes to the contact system is probably my favorite QOL upgrade (no, wait, /ah is better...)- no more sifting and sorting and trying to remember who you'd run on which character, no more having to figure out how to get to new ones, just a quick search and usually a 'teleport to contact' and you're good to go.

So I bopped over to Mercedes Sheldon, who I don't recall dealing with, and got rolling on the Dirge of Chaos arc.

The arc was plain vanilla mechanically, but the story was fun. One thing bugged me though- the MacGuffin was a cassette tape. Every time someone mentioned it, I grumbled. I don't know how old this mission is, but I'll bet the whole iPod revolution was well under way. A minor quibble, but an irritating one.

First mission, Investigate Troll Rave.

Fairly problematic for my guy, but then most everything is problematic for him.
As I mentioned in another thread, 'Burn Inspiration' might as well be part of his attack chain.

Lots of freaks, and a string of Tanks I'm supposed to take down.
Plenty of touch-and-go, one faceplant remedied by the vet rez, lots of time spent sleeping waiting for someone to bash me so I could wake up. Made it out more or less in one piece, and got acquainted with my attack chain.

One sort of offputting thing about this guy is the sound of many attacks give me bad Lost flashbacks- I fire them off and my brain trips the ABERRANT RECTOR! ABERRANT RECTOR!! alarm.

Anyway, finished it with the help of an almost unbroken string of burned inspirations. The key to the tanks was damage overload- eating a couple of reds, tripping aim & buildup and going whole hog worked *much* better than my usual tactic of purples, purples & more purples.

Also, hover blasting.


Next up, Defeat 20 Freaks in Talos.
Orly?

There's just no excuse for missions like this still being in the game. Hire a summer intern to comb through the game and either cut the # to something reasonable or replace it with an equally time consuming but less pointless alternative.

Complete Current Mission?
Yes, please.


Next up, a standard 'freaks in an office' mish.
I liked the boss (KILLDOZER, nice nod to a really bad horror flick from my youth), the clues I collected were amusing, so I'd rate it above a standard radio mish.

On to the final mish, another Freaks in an Office offering. I'd have liked a change of map just for the sake of monotony- it doesn't make any practical difference, but plowing spawns seems less repetitive when the locations are mixed up a bit.

note to self: add slot to Hover at 22, blow some of that 900m bankroll on Steath IO.

So it's a long slog through multiple levels of boring office space before I happen across the DIRGE OF CHAOS looming over a cowering lady- he looks surprisingly like a Spectral Demon Lord. Orange boss, in one of those weird hallway/rooms that promise multiple spawns hiding in the nooks.

I figure I'll just burn all my inspirations and try to take him down fast, and if the masses get me oh well.

I had one purple, some reds & a couple of oranges. Aim, Build Up, and off I go.

Yikes!!

I guess hurting him triggers ambushes?

On top of the expected bonus spawns hiding around the corner.

On the plus side, he goes down pretty fast, and the quarters are so close not many of the OCEAN of ghosts and freaks can get off their melee attacks.

On the minus side, AN OCEAN OF GHOSTS AND FREAKS!

Somehow, I managed to survive. I was burning inspirations as they dropped so I don't know what they were, but I came out the other end with next to no health and next to no endurance.

Chaotic, but fun!


But what's this, no mission complete?

ESCORT THE HOSTAGE?

BAH.

Nearly as irritating as 'Arrest 500 X'.


Somewhat fortunately I'd had to kill my way through so the only enemy between me and the door was the sub-moron hostage AI.

Was thisclose to 21 after calling in the mission, so I wiped a couple of likely looking spawns on the street & headed to the trainer.

Considering my options, I went with Will Domination.
I hate sleep powers, but as I'm essentially a full-time soloist it will come in handy. And it apparently does okay damage, so....



I had fun, so Psicops lives to blast another day.

you might set your blaster to not have to fight bosses

okay, another typical night of planning one thing then doing another.

Paraleghell is at the Marcus Cole solo mission but keeps getting mapserved. It's super cool so I don't want to drop it or autocomplete it, I'll try again tonight at minimum graphic settings and see what happens.

In the meantime, I switched over to my recently created dark/dark dom Plasma Noir, got on a DFB team & mowed a bunch of stuff & ended up level 7.

Second time through I appreciated DFB more.
Quite a bit of the new content is a refutation of those who say the devs don't pay attention or listen to the playerbase. Things like many elements of the Twinshot & Graves arcs taking place in areas where players worked their way around rough patches in the leveling highway are sly digs only long time regulars are likely to get, but DFB is a huge billboard that reads GET IT? GET IT? in two story tall neon letters.

It really is an old time sewer run given a Michael Bay summer blockbuster makeover. And with trainers at the doors & no need to get killed so you can get back to Atlas. The Hydra battle at the end is a great touch, very thematic.

As for dark/dark, I'm really liking it so far. The power animations for dark domination are terrific- the only downside so far is they're *so* good and modern it makes the dark blast/dark melee stuff in the secondary look musty and dated- sort of the way the newer higher res costume bits exist uneasily with the old time options.

It isn't a deal breaker, just something I noticed.

Anyway, fun character, one more addition to my crowded playlist.

I'll try and get past the Cole mission tonight and get Paraleghell through some more incarnate stuff.

wrote up a big long post about my introduction to DA, when to post it and the forums had logged me out, tried to go back to the previous page & my browser crashed.

Grr.

So, you get the Cliff's Notes edition.

Kept getting mapserved on the Cole solo mission, so I shelved it pending a fix. The forum workaround of pulling individual spawns & concentrating on single target attacks didn't appeal.

Decided to take Paralehell to the new DA, appropriately enough as he was the star of my How To Make Millions in DA Off Arcane Rares thread lo, those many moons ago when the market was new and paying a few million for a recipe was considered either griefing by the seller or an unreachable sum.

Had to check the wiki to find DA, slightly embarrassing- my base beacon took me to the old one. Hooked up with the contact, ran the 'investigate apartment' mission which was a great introduction to the zone. Very not in the usual tone of the game, which made it very effective. Gave me a brief flashback to Clive Barker's Undying, which is a good thing.

I like the makeover, although I really miss the fog and think retaining it would've added to the atmosphere. Keeping the layout basically the same is great, as I've spent countless hours in the zone and know it like the back of my hand- zipping around with Paraleghell was giving me serious deja vu, although the spawns were much smaller.

Ran across a couple of people street sweeping, which warmed my heart.
Nuked a couple of spawns myself- he's still got it, although some of those Knives of Vengeance bosses hit hard.

Got situated with my contacts & started the first story arc.
And, started getting weird lag and mapserving. Not as bad as the Cole arc, but it did cause me to have to re-start a couple of missions, which is annoying.

I wasn't having the problem out in the zone just nuking spawns. I'm hoping it isn't like when CoV came out and I just couldn't play those Arachnos Lab maps because my machine couldn't handle the load.

Anyway, managed to clear a few missions.
I like the big new cave- like a bigger Troll cave but with the blue color palette of the old CoT caves. Knives of Vengeance are a lot less annoying than their Artemis counterparts- the bosses are rough, but I'll take a rough boss over a 6-deep pile of caltrops any day of the week. Storyline so far is engaging, although I'd have given the writing a few more polishing passes.

Took me a couple of tries, but I managed to find Kadabra Kill & Sigil.
Hoping to get back in the mix tonight. I guess I should start nosing around seeing what I want to slot in my Alpha slot...

my only annoyance with DfB is that with the trainers there to level you, it is much more convenient than the mission arcs in Atlas that are nicely chained in location except that you have to go back to Liberty to train.

I wish BaB or some Longbow trainer would show up between missions

Okay, got through a couple of missions & finished the first arc without any more connection issues, but was promptly mapserved outside the mish as I paused to Inferno a particularly juicy spawn of orange cons.


Really loved the final mission- terrific, creepy remix of a standard sewer map, great final encounter that actually made me lean back in surprise and say Woah! Keanu-style.

So being a hero I opted to try and save both Sigil & Kadabra.
I had a bunch of big defenses in my tray to keep me alive and figured if a fire blaster can't generate enough DPS to get the job done who could?

Alas, I had an unfortunate mishap mid-fight- hit Inferno before noticing I didn't have any big blues in my tray. By the time I fumbled around and managed to combine one, I was dead. Popped Return to Battle and picked up where I left off, but ran out of timer. Was genuinely shocked when Sig & Kadab dropped dead.

Great mission.

They went out of their way to underline the dangers of not being able to take out the Knives in time, and even so I was surprised.


Exited, nuked that juicy spawn and got mapserved.

Looking forward to continuing the DA storyline, so far it's top drawer stuff.
I haven't enjoyed playing a 50 this much in, well, ever.

Something important to remember story-wise with the new DA is that when you finish a contact's arc, as well as giving uyou the next contact they also let you play a short non-combat mission as the contact themselves, which gives more insight into them and the story.

I'll keep the solo story thing in mind- hopefully they won't mapserve me Cole-style.

One I23 change I'm not liking is the TUNNEL system.
Well, I like it from a function standpoint, but conceptually it bugs me for the same reason the mission entrances in the First Ward & Night Ward bug me- a floating portal undermines my sense of place.
It could be anywhere.
They're all identical, so why is there more than one?
It erodes the mask of the game world as an actual city, where I'm running around having adventures, exposing a bit of the numerical armature beneath.

In design terms those mission doors are just the same as, say, a warehouse door in King's Row. They are where they are to impose some sort of temporal spacing in your gameplay. But whereas my brain goes "oh yeah, sure, this gang of Skulls is in this warehouse but the boss is over in *that* warehouse" and thinks jogging to a different location to clean out basically the same warehouse makes perfect sense.

Not the sense I get from exiting a portal, calling a contact then heading halfway across the zone to another, identical portal.

For TUNNEL specifically, it just seems like something done on the cheap.
"Oh, we'll just slap a swirly energy thing next to the train station- done!"
Really? A dimensional warp is just hanging out on the sidewalk & there are a couple of dudes watching it and that's it? At least the DA entrance has its own planter box and circle of chanting acolytes.
Firebase Zulu access at Portal Corps was a big sandbagged security checkpoint, now I can get there from downtown Talos?

Hurmm.

Portal Corps doesn't bug me at all- those portals are very explicitly and massively anchored in the landscape of the game world. They have a physical reality these newfangled portals lack.

I'm usually pretty laissez faire about this stuff, generally happy to suspend my disbelief in whatever way the game requires to speed my path to the bashing enemies over the head segment of my session, but for some reason these things bug me.

also, a marketeering note:

I haven't been doing anything organized, just messing with this & that. I can report from running Paraleghell through a pretty limited chunk of high end content that simply checking your IO recipe drops & crafting the 'good' ones is still a terrific earner for lazy/disinterested players. Rough earning estimate off the first DA arc is 100 million or so, with 60m coming from a LotG Defense.

Interesting change of habit, I've been storing my rares away in the event I need them. I'd never have done this in the old days, but the /vault command makes it SO easy.

I also have two characters parked in Ft Trident converting merits to Hero merits, gradually transforming the fat pile I collected while burning through Super Packs- I'll figure out what to do with them once I've got a fair pile.

So anyway.....still dirt simple to make huge piles of inf with no particular effort. =P

I've always loved the radio bank mishes (not the safeguards) that send me to a sewer grate. What, is this where the hobos keep their grubby ones?