Returning Player Diary

oh yeah, and some actual gameplay!

As a form of bribe/reward for going more or less quietly into his nightly bath and allowing the installation of pajamas minus the need to employ assorted forbidden wrestling holds he gets to "sit with me" at the computer, where we either play Angry Birds together or "look at a guy", i/e play CoH in his particular way.

Last night he wanted to 'look at a guy', so I fired up the game.
This time he also wanted to PICK the guy, which was new- he sometimes likes me to scroll through all my various alts and read off their names to him, but he's never before been proactive about wanting to pick one out.

Inevitably we ended up on what is probably my least thematically child appropriate character, my demon mastermind Hellflail. Her current incarnation involves bone wings, bird feet on monstrous legs & liberal use of the bioluminescent skins from the Mutant pack.

Also, of course, a pack of growling, snarling demons.

"Uh, dada....is this a *good guy*?" he queried once I'd deployed her "friends".

"Well, sort of." I hedged.

Anyway, we ran around for a bit sightseeing but he didn't really like mastermind 'gameplay' (standing around watching pets) so we switched out.

This time the ball for Character Roulette landed on Werebot, who I think I mentioned a while back. A Clockwork sweeper bitten by a werewolf, claws/invulnerable brute. He had a thing for my inhuman characters last night.

We no sooner log in that he demands we go see the "green guys".
He often makes demands that initially bemuse me.
"Which green guys?" I asked.
"You know dada, the UGLY ones!"
"Trolls?" I venture.
"NO DADA! The BIG ugly ones with the creepy little guys INSIDE OF THEM!"
"OH!" I exclaim, the lightbulb going off. "The Hydras."
"Yeah! Them!"

Fortunately there's *always* a DFB kicking off nowadays and we caught the last slot on one just leaving the station.

DFBs are almost perfect for him- tons of stuff to 'bonk', no waiting around, lots of 'friends' helping us, and all in sewers and CAVES. And if he gets a wild hair to stare at some bit of scenery, or wants to go back to the last room and see if "those guys" came back yet, it's no big deal- the steamroller can roll perfectly well without us for a few minutes.

Also, proof he pays more attention than I think- at one point he yelled "DADA LOOK OUT FOR THE BUBBLES!"
Because, indeed, I'd stood still too long and the telltale goo was starting to burst forth from the muck.

"Thanks!" I replied, leaping out of harms way.

His favorite of our teammates was a Titan Weapons guy with a sword the size of a Buick, so I may be picking that set up sooner rather than later.

After that it was time for books & bed. He'd taken an uncharacteristic nap earlier, after reading him a few books and getting him settled it was nearly my bedtime, so no short TFs last night.

Maybe this evening!

A quick run this afternoon while everyone else was out to lunch.

I was doing some marketeering with my emp/energy defender Doctor Gratz (who I should post a screen of, he has one of my favorite bios) when the call went out for a newspaper team around his level. I signed up and ran a fun couple of missions.

It was interesting playing Doc Gratz, who is by far the most reactive character I've used since my comeback. It was a quirky team, heavy on controllers and blasters with one tank- and level 28 the controls were a little bit sketchy and nobody was all that survivable, so the Doc was a welcome addition.

It was a team of 8 running at +2, so most everything was red and purple to me- I mostly left my secondary in its holster and stuck to buffs and heals.

I have a high level emp/elec who was one of the first characters I ever made and thought I had a pretty decent feel for the set, but it's been a *long* time since I played him regularly. Even so, I'm pretty sure they must have given Fortitude a major recharge buff at some point- at level 25 I was able to keep it up on 3 teammates- and yeah, I slotted it for a ton of recharge, but Doc doesn't even have Hasten yet.

Anyway, I kept it up on our tank and the two most suicidal blasters without much trouble. I could always tell when I missed a re-apply because suddenly someone would start taking a BOATLOAD of damage. =P

We had some casualties, but I saved more than I lost and we only had one death that i couldn't immediately rectify with my Rez- doing a 'stop the robbery' mission on that one jewelry store map *stuffed to the rafters* with Arachnos. It was hairy enough on its own, then we were getting hit with this big ol' ambushes- we had a half a team-wipe when I got stuck on the wrong stide of a doorway when a huge ambush rolled up. The surviving half managed to pull it together and we finished them off, which was satisfying.

So, that was fun. People get down on empathy, but it's a fun, intensive set to play- at least at the lower levels.

Also got in another Summer Double Feature run, oddly enough on the same character as the last one- Burn Rate, my fire blaster. We had one guy who was a total lemon and didn't even try to do his job on the heist, but he was a warm body during the fights and that part of things went more smoothly and less tediously than my last run.

The Gladiator match was quite a bit shorter- we never even saw the God Warrior, which surprised me. We must have done something wrong. Still, I got my reward drop so no harm no foul. It looks like a set with good bonuses, so I may just keep running it with her until I can fill it all the way out.

finally found a fan of the new tutorial- my son!

just now:

"Hey dada, I want to visit another guy. I want to see those rock guys."
"What rock guys?"
"You know, those kooky LASER rock guys, in that other city!"
"OH, the Shivans? Okay, let's go see them."
"Yay!"


When I alt-ed out to post this before I forgot it, he said "Dada, are you going to go report to everybody on the COMPUTER?"

Pretty much.

also ran across a celebrity making a shocking admission in Atlas while fiddling with the costume for Shame Spiral, my new illusion/time controller...



too lazy to resize, sorry everyone.

logged in my stone/fire brute Saint Helen by request tonight and ran a newspaper- my son's hunger for caves has turned Sharkhead into my nearly permanent red-side stomping ground, as it seems *most* paper missions there will net you a cave door. And in our amazing modern world, if it doesn't I just abandon it and keep trying until I get one! =P

Took three tries before I got a CoT in a cave mish, seeking my old friend the Leshy Corpse.


So, Helen may be the perfect character for my son to "play" on my lap.
She's tough enough to survive his indifferent, haphazard attack chain and I can keep things from grinding to a complete stop by sneaking my hand over and hitting Burn every once in a while.

His new favorite thing in the game is Hurl Boulder.
The first time I used it he fell in love. Usually he's happy to let me run things and just tell me where to go and who to bonk, but Hurl Boulder inspired him to take over the keyboard.

"Dada, which one can I THROW A ROCK with?"
So I showed him, and he was in heaven. I think he would have been utterly content to just throw rocks at "ghosties" if I'd had it slotted for more recharge. But he got tired of waiting, so I showed him the Mallets.

"Dada, look, it's a ROCK SWORD!"

He also REALLY liked Fault, which was fortunate given our comparatively slow defeat pace. Nothing compensates for the attack chain of a boulder-crazy 3 year old like regularly dumping everyone on their rear ends.

So between Burn, Hurl Boulder, Fault and the two mallets we cleaned out that cave but good. Because with my son, EVERY cave mission is a 'kill all'....if I exit out before we've uncovered every black pixel on the map he becomes very unhappy.

That's another reason newspaper/scanners are great for him- they never drag on so long he gets tired of it. Generally one or two basic cave missions and he's happy as a lark.


As Helen isn't someone I play a huge amount, I might respec her into a more son-friendly form- six slotted Hurl Boulder, more recharge for the mallets. I also need to move all her armors and auras off the visible GUI...he kept wanting to turn things off. Out of sight, out of mind...

Okay, as with all things involving a toddler if you play enough CoH with them there WILL BE disasters.

Over the last month or so I've occasionally left him alone at the keyboard to explore this or that low level zone- like, I'll drag one of my 50s to Atlas so he can run around and look at all the characters without ending up in the "hawst-a-bull". I take the opportunity to clean up a bit, vacuum the carpet, sometimes do a load of dishes. You can get an amazing amount done with ten or fifteen uninterrupted minutes- it's easily worth three or four hours of 'Toddler Time'.

So.

I logged in this morning and noticed that the server screen claimed I had 0 reward tokens.

"WTH?" I thought. "I know I had 4 yesterday."

Pull up the window, and nothing.

"OMG the system ate my tokens!" was my first thought.
As I sat staring at the interface, with all those repeatable slots with the pretty, swirling green arrows I began to get a sick feeling in my gut. Because, you see, my son LOVES helping me pick new powers or slot new enhancements.

I logged in a character and pulled up the email window.
And yep, there was a bunch of crummy junk I'd never in a million years waste a token on- Summon Signature Hero! A billion uses of Windfall! Enhancement boosters!

GUH.

Why couldn't he at least waste them on Super Packs?

Well, no point being upset about it- I'm the one that left him logged in.
Happily I don't want the Mecha costume set- by the time the next VIP super costume is released I should have rebuilt my stockpile.


And while I'm looking around through my alts a while back I noticed one of my favorite costumes (if not power combinations), Night Bee, was showing up in the server window as a minimum height Huge male in a purple jumpsuit, rather than a normal height female with a fairly involved outfit.

When last seen she'd been flying around Cap Au Diable seeing the sights with my son at the controls. I logged "her" in and found her in Pocket D standing next to the Super Tailor. He'd apparently found the Pocket D teleporter, wandered around until he found someone to "talk" to, and then proceeded to turn Night Bee into a tiny, musclebound dude.

Sigh.

Happily, I have a screenshot of her costume in this very thread so I'll be able to repair the damage without much trouble.

But I can see I'm going to have to do some serious power tray editing on his favorite "guys" to visit- either that or watch him like a hawk.



In other news, turning cheap purples into expensive ones is BY FAR the single most profitable market activity I've ever engaged in. I'm not even doing it in any sort of organized way- other people are patiently placing bids on their favorite recipes and getting them quite a bit cheaper than I am. I'm just bombing through the list, bidding 150m on every crummy recipe in turn until I get some hits. Last night I picked up 3, crafted & converted them. They all sold overnight for a positively ridiculous profit, about 130m for the 'bad' ones (two Chance for Fire Damages) and 200m for the 'good' one (Apoc damage).

So, 1/4 of the way to the inf cap for a night's casual labor.

Converting has gone great after that first one burned 4 of them, aside from one awful mishap where I forgot to click "out of set" on a Fortunata and ended up blowing 3 converters turning a crappy Fortunata into a crappy Fortunata. Clicked the right button and turned it into a Gravitic Anchor. Converted that one and got......another Fortunata.

Viva Goat!

But all the others were one shotters- my thinking is if I get anything that will turn a profit, I stick with it, forget trying to upgrade. Seems to work well, although as I get more experience with them I'll get a feel for whether it's worth burning more converters to turn that 130m profit into a 200m one.


I've been working on Scab Factory the last few days- I ran tips, reinforced his villain alignment, then started through the first SSA. Ran the first two bits, had a fun time. I'm going to keep him going through the whole thing as I never did finish the hero side version, and also picking up a villain merit for running a couple of missions a night is a nice bonus.

A minor aggravation, defeating the boss at the end of part 2 GRATZ'ed him to level 30, and all those lovely inspirations were wasted on the end of episode cut-scene! I get a kick out of going aggro when I get the level boost, missing out on it was surprisingly annoying.

Other than that, not much going on. Still thinking about what AT to use for my concept character Pay to Win (who, thanks to my son's profligate token abuse, should have enough XP boosters to see him all the way to level 50 =P). I'm afraid I'm guilty of DFB abuse- the ability to quickly jump a new character up to the teens or early twenties running fast paced team content hasn't improved my already terminal case of alt-itis. I'm going to re-roll my dark/dark dominator because Dark Assault is just too graphically dated when paired up with the awesomeness of Dark Control- the animation for the confuse power is my favorite thing on earth right now.

In the past I'd have just stuck with him- the powers are great, even if the graphics are dated. But knowing I can swap in a new assault set and get him back to level 15 in an evening's play inspired me to start over.

Now, I just need to figure out which assault set to go with....

I have a server dedicated to characters my kids create. If you haven't already, you'll want to remove the store icon from your UI. There's an option for that somewhere.

Note that if your account goes back to premium you will no longer be able to hide the Paragon Market button.

Yeah, it was more a precautionary thing just in case your account lapsed for whatever reason. A curious son may very well find that store button.

I actually have 13 slots on Triumph as premium. I must have bought a bunch way back before the market even existed. Of course, I have 25 slots filled, so 12 of them will still be locked. :P

I also used my stipend the same way you do. In fact, I still have points from my last stipend backed for when I go back to VIP.

Mortimer Kal: It's fun, it's fast, it's well-written, and (for the next half-day) it's the WST!

Did it for the first time this weekend, was a blast. Plus, you get to punch Positron in the face! It's 20-40, so if you can run it with a few maxed out players it's super quick. *Much* less of a potential PITA than Admiral Sutter blueside.

Quote:

Originally Posted by EarthWyrm But I do understand that there is an internet rule that any bad idea must be presented by someone at least twice a year to remind everyone who hasn't already read every previous thread on the topic precisely why the idea is bad.

Okay, looks like Mortimer Kal it is.

II'll see if I can start one up tonight.
Anybody who's redside on Virtue tonight & wants a run, hit me up- assuming no unforseen disasters I should be on between 9 & 9:30 PST.