The Wall! (When your focus flags)

When water blast went live I told myself, "Alright! Now is the time to make that */storm corrupter you've always wanted!"

This was after an extended time playing brutes and tanks, with a Soldier of Arachnos and a Grav/FF Controller thrown in for flavor. What do all of those have in common? Status protection.

I reached 35 last night and (because somehow I managed to milk as much time in First Ward as possible *yay storyarc stickiness*) ran into Rikti for the first time on this character...and got owned.

I've been playing this game for a while and I feel like I should be over that cold water moment when your so awesome toon gets perma held and cut down. I should go buy candy and go back and kick their butts!

But I immediately thought, "If I had made that FF/Water defender or Water/Traps corruptor, that totally wouldn't have happened. I'm going to do that right now!"

I suppressed that urge but I feel like I've hit a wall. Do you all usually play through, or start another alt until you get away from that "negative moment" that can cloud the old joy for a character?

I wouldn't link a systemic problem (some ATs lack of status protection) with hitting 'the wall'.

I play all kinds of weird stuff, and if their oddities become more annoying than endearing I can always just log out and log back in with a "good" character that isn't so affected by the various pitfalls of the game.

Lack of mez protection does get on my nerves, which is why the majority of my high level types either have it, or have powers or a playstyle that renders it mostly irrelevant.

All you need is ranged defense, and that issue mostly goes away.

Or, go villainside (grr, why is it not available heroside?!) and get defense armor. That works, too.

There are walls that are too high for me to want to scale (electric blast, I'm lookin' at you!), so I reroll. There are some that are little walls, and worth some extra work to get over.

Water/storm is awesome. I'd find a way to make it work, but it's your call.

While I can sympathize with your plight, it's the very fact that the game behaves
so differently for various AT's, and even powersets within an AT, that gives the
game its replayability leading to (rampant) alt-itis.

My very first toon was a Blaster, so I come from that background, and I don't have
trouble with the Rikti.

Why? Because I know my blaster and I built for it. I have capped range defense,
I have plenty of breakfrees for when def fails, and I have holds and other tools
to work with to mitigate the problem, and I orchestrate the battle accordingly.

That's not due to my blaster being "better" than yours - it's that my experience as
a Blaster has taught me how to deal with them (I put in plenty of hospital time
when RWZ was the original Rikti Crash Site).

Otoh, my Brute? He wouldn't even notice Rikti - except as something squishy he
stepped on during his travels to wherever he was going... But a Malta Sapper?
Ruh Roh, that could be a problem unless handled quickly (my blaster wouldn't even
blink - the sapper would have been snipe-killed before the fight even began).

My Stalker? Bah, Placate the Rikti Drone in the spawn and move on to the primary target,
and get on with the "assassinating" business, leaving that group none the wiser.

My PB? DFA with Nova form until I get mezzed (guaranteed, eventually). At that point,
he's officially "pissed off" and the mezzer very quickly learns that a mezzed Nova
who can immediately morph into a Big, Bad, and Very Aggressive Dwarf, is a lot more
trouble than he bargained for (or can handle)...


In short, ALL toons have strong points and weak points, and for me, at least,
part of the fun (and the frustration too ) is learning and dealing with those
various nuiances.


So, yeah, in the Rikti case, I'd advocate a little well planned "payback"

Grab some candy, lock-n-load, and kick some major alien backside...


Regards,
4

My response to the wall is to try again, but harder. When I see a challenge, I accept.

The closest thing I've had to the mezz issue is when I was going through Nightward with a blaster, and every group of elementals could chain-hold for awhile. My response was to figure out which were the mezzers, then take those out first and reserve the basic abilities for when I do get mezzed.

I hit lots of walls that make me lose focus.

But I can certainly relate to that level-35-with-a-mez-protectionless-squishy Wall. I really liked my Fire/Rad controller up until around that level. Around that point, there seemed to be too many encounters that involved getting detoggled and KOd. This is one of the reasons I have trouble playing Defenders/Controllers/Corruptors that don't involve Sonic or FF for the mez protection. Even if it seems to be going well, I just know that there will come a time when it will become very annoying. Heck, even Sonic and FF are a bit annoying due to the sleep hole.

It seems to me that many players talking about the lack of status protection being a 'wall' are too insistent on soloing while playing powersets that are intentionally designed to favor team play.

Most of you guys are getting way too hung up on the specific example and missing the OP's point.

I tend to alt or even stop playing the game for a bit when I hit the wall. Sometimes I'll go so far as to delete the character.

My "wall" seems to be Level 20... and then again at 32. By that I mean that pretty much every character I make will get hung up at those points. At 20 is where the progression of gaining powers at a good clip starts to taper off. And therefore I am likely to Alt at that point and just have a ton of characters hanging between 17 and like 24.

The second point is where my inertia runs out again after I get around to playing a 20 again. A lot of significant powers hit at 32, and so I lose focus since a majority of my progression is behind me. But, if I can power through that, I am usuallly golden, and the character will likely get to 50.

My play experience follows a pattern:

I realize I haven't played in a while, come back, ooh and aah at the various changes and updates.

I mess around for awhile and have fun, and slowly start to participate with the community again.

I begin to notice balance issues on various teams and leagues. I bring them up to the community and get roundly shouted down for various reasons.

I get angry and bitter, and leave again until I forget why I left in the first place and hey there's some cool new powersets!

So yeah, it's a cycle.

I usually hit a wall around 33-35 when all the good content suddenly drops off and I have nothing but old content that's usually a string of defeat alls or timed missions or timed defeat alls with no interesting story or mechanics in the missions.

For me it's not really the AT that's the issue... it's the uninspired content from 35-50. We really need more new content for the 35-50 range.

We don't need no education
We don't need no thought control...

Meh. I usually play Blasters, anyway. What helps me with Defs/Corrs is building for obscene damage in solo builds, I.E. building them like blasters. If I need to bust out extra Buff/Debuff/Healing, I switch to my other build.

For me, the Wall usually hits when I can't see the screen because of this reddish-pink stuff in the way. That's when I realize my eyes are closed and it's time to go to bed.

In all seriousness, I usually try to keep pushing with characters I have a hard time getting the hang of, even if it's just enough to get the next level. I found a lot of my improvements in overall skill level (such as they are, of course; I'd say I'm "fair-ta-middlin'" at the game) came from playing powersets and archetypes that weren't working for me, and trying to figure out how to not eat floor. That said, when creating new characters, I tend to stick to what I love (I don't think I've made a new Stalker or Dominator in months.)

I've never encountered gameplay that I just a total show stopper -- I tend to eliminate it by compensating my approach whatever way it may be.

The wall for me however is when a character just doesn't 'feel' like it's up to snuff and I've already made some adjustments with sub-par results. The fun factor goes down for me, so I'll shelve the concept and just come back to it later if ever. Sometimes that period can be a few months or even years. This is of course after I've played it a while and not an immediate response.

Content wise - I'll just avoid what annoys me heh

Waaaaait a minute...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hqnk */storm corrupter

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hqnk ran into Rikti for the first time on this character...and got owned. I've been playing this game for a while and I feel like I should be over that cold water moment when your so awesome toon gets perma held and cut down.

Did Hurricane stop working?

Storm is an aggressive powerset. When soloing (and sometimes even when teaming) you have to take it to the bad guys and debuff them before they do worse to you. Hurricane on a Corruptor can by itself reduce enemies' to-hit to the same point being soft-capped would. Point of fact, it's actually better than the defense soft-cap because it reduces range while moving them away and rag-dolls them -- they can't act at all while ragdolled. Consistent application of 'Cane will result in being hit fewer times over the course of an adventure than a soft-capped Scrapper.

If you get held through that, pop a Breakfree and retoggle Hurricane before the debuff it already put on them wears off (you've got ten seconds).

Steamy Mist is a big part of this formula, as it allows you to get into Hurricane range before they know you're coming. In the case of Rikti Drones, you may have to corner pull or bum-rush them to debuff them before they can react, but they're a very unusual case.

Sure, it messes up neat piles of spawns. Also it requires you to consciously tag everything and go back and re-tag it if you're taking too long to kill it, distracting from pure DPS. But it gives you enormous survivability in exchange.

On teams, let someone else take the aggro, and save 'Cane for self-defense or crises.

Storm can be very powerful for Defenders defensively -- it also adds offense. But you have to deliberately mess enemies up -- when I try to stand back and play cautiously, I find Storm doesn't work nearly as well. Take the chaos to them and make them regret they never saw you coming!

Typically when I start a brand new character, I'll easily get up to 24-26 or thereabout and just lose interest. That's where the novelty ends and familiarity begins, and the switch-over can be rough. If I can get past this (i.e. if I don't get a better idea, be beset by nostalgia or be distracted by another game), I'll usually last to around 32-35, which is the point where familiarity turns into habit. That's a switch-over I can almost never do.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

They make this thing called BREAK FREES... just saying

Inspirations help me get through any perceived walls a toon may be facing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paladiamors I love you, I Burnt the Toast!

My wall is the 30's Blue Side. As a result I have quite a few hero characters in that level range. I don't seem to have this problem Red Side at all, so I chalk it up to my reaction to the really old content that still largely constitutes that level range. I haven't given Night Ward a try yet, so that may help.