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February 28, 2006

Well ... that was game-quitting frustrating ...

So we sign on as Psi-clone and Amorpha.

So I run across Puck Bunny by accident, and she tells me she's on her way to a Hami raid. Never done one, but sounded like one of those Experiences One Must Have. I invite myself along.

I lose PB on the way there, and am told which direction to go from the gate. Which, it turns out, is the wrong direction. I'm not teamed, because I know nothing about the whole Hami situation and am either waiting for an invite or waiting to get some clue as to what to do.

Amorpha makes it into the Hive, and is engaged in action, and starts to give me directions of where to go, at which point I get similar directions from PB (who had died and was heading back to the zone) correcting the earlier mistake. (Well, heck, mistakes happen, and I made a few navigational errors myself tonight).

Following instructions, I run across the whole Hami amoeba complex thingie. There are people around, but not sure what's going on and I come in closer ...

... and am one-shotted. Swell.

Fly back from the FF hospital (after first heading in the opposite direction -- my aforementioned navigatoin error). On the way, Amorpha (also a neophyte at this) is telling me that there's some sort of organization to the mass mayhem, and there's some sort of Illusion Controller group that has a specific role to play. So even though PB finally invites me onto team, I then drop and get onto the Illusion Controller team.

Which was, let me tell you, a laugh a minute, hovering over Hami, dropping Phantom Armies, and listening to banal netchatter.

For, oh, about an hour.

(In retrospect, should have stuck with PB. Or joined the Empathy team and done healing down in the action.)

Got to listen to lots of action for Amorpha. She's having a tense, exciting time -- along with about 11K XP per Mito that goes down (which is about 11K more XP than I'm getting per Mito).

Finally, the Mitos are all down, and things start to get interesting. Big strategic maneuvers. Orders. Counter-orders. Wave attacks of certain ATs.

But we're reaching the climax. I begin to earn fractional XP as I spam Blinds onto Hami along with similar Hold attacks from other Controllers. Which fractional XP is better than the zilcho XP I was getting earlier. But at least I'll get big bucks when Hami goes down now, not to mention a Hami-O, right?

Tension mounts. Holds are spammed. Hami's HP drop. Lag increases. Tensoin mounts some more. Things are just about ...

... locked. Frozen. Slowed, halting then .... nothing.

Fucking. Discoed.

Takes about 5 interminable minutes (with Amorpha giving me an HP countdown) for my machine to decide it's lost its connection, and cycle back to the login screen for CoH. Quickly login to come back to everyone chattering about what Hami-O they got and what they'll trade for and whew, wasn't that exciting?

So ... 1 death and three hours of my life, in exchange for, oh, about 25 XP.

Frelling swell.


Posted by Dave at 9:17 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Gameplay

"... When I'm Sixty-Four?"

Margie and I were discussing via IM something scheduled for tonight that I couldn't remember.

Dave: Oh, well. Must be early dementia.

Margie: loony but lovable

Dave: Will you still play CoH with me when I'm 64?

Margie: City of Seniors - love it

Dave: Hobbling across the Hollows. "That's one hell of a curb cut, young man!"
Steel Pin Canyon.
Fighting Ruin Mages. "I've fallen -- and I can't get up!"

Margie: They will need to put a rehab center and nursing home next to all the hosptals
Pocket-D converted to BINGO parlor

Dave: Well, at least the trams all have ramps.


Posted by Dave at 11:53 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Humor

Monday munchies

Got on a little late last night with Ho Ho and Princess Peep, but still had plenty of fun -- lots of pre-Frostfire Hollows mishes (and I suspect that next Monday will be Frostfire-a-Go-Go, over and over again).

Both of us dinged 12, which let me put another attack into my chain (rather than Taunt -- the group is such that Taunting doesn't seem as necessary or useful).

Battle-axe is so freaking slow (if powerful) that it's occasionally frustrating, but I'm not going to do Hasten because I'm already sucking air endurance-wise.

Nice to be able to run through the (northern) Hollows with increasingly less concern about the mobs there. Cannot wait for a travel power, though.


Posted by Dave at 8:50 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Character Design , Gameplay

February 27, 2006

D&D Online

Nice article in the NY Times on the new online D&D game, which we can expect will pull in at least some CoXers.

From what I read, aside from built-in voice chat (bleah), I expect that D&D Online will fill a similar niche to CoX -- roleplaying (to the extent that people choose) plus video game-style smashing and blasting. Folks looking for the former will be able to do so (just as they do on CoX); people looking for imaginative scenarios will little doubt find themselves in the same endless warehouses / caves / tech labs that CoH players deal with.

Which isn't a bad thing, but it's not a real substitute for a F2F game (and, to be sure, in some ways, vice-versa). Expecially if you get beyond the "hard rules" sort of games like D20 into more flexible/softer systems, what the players and GMs can come up with for the action in an F2F game cannot be matched by a computer system -- whereas the visceral bam-smash of a video game (plus the convenience of timing, of quick pick-up action, and of virtual communities) cannot be beat by character sheets and dice.

Bottom line #1 -- It's not a competition. It's a complementary set of entertainments.

Bottom line #2 -- I don't have any particular urge to migrate from CoX to D&D Online (unless, of course, all our friends did, and even then it would be a scosh dicey, so to speak).


Posted by Dave at 4:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Media

Task Force Musings

I've been pondering getting some sort of a TF organized, probably for 10-12 March (weekend after next). I think it's easier to do on a weekend day/night than trying to get things organized (and finished) on a weeknight (or spanning weeknights).

Possible options:

On the hero side ...

  1. Positron (lvl 10-15, 3 starters, 15 missions): Big Lungs/Christmas Present (10/11), Ho Ho/Princess Peep (11), Amethyst Crown/Fallen Twice (14/12).

  2. Synapse (lvl 15-21, 4 starters, 15 missions, Babbage/Clockwork King): The Azures (16), Fazenda/Araware (17).

  3. Sister Psyche (lvl 20-26, 5 starters, 14 missions, Clamor): Torchielle/Kazima|Hildegard (22/22|20)

  4. Manticore (lvl 30-36, 7 starters, 10 missions, Hopkins): Velvet/P-Siren (31)

  5. Major Flagg/Respec 3 (lvl 44-50, 3 starters, 5 missions): Psi-clone/Amorpha (48)

On the villain side ...

  1. Virgil Tarikoss (15-20, 4 starters, 6 missions, Infernal/Bat'zul): Ravenous/Charity (16/15)

Hmmm. Actually fewer possibilities than I'd think, given our number of characters. And I suppose that the Respec mish and, perphaps, Tarikoss could be done in a long evening (though Tarikoss took us 6 bloody hours the only other time I've played it).

Any of my faithful readers have a preference (based on your availability/interest/stable)? Based on comments here, I'll organize something in the most appropriate forum.


Posted by Dave at 11:37 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Gameplay

Roll Call

Current status on characters:


Posted by Dave at 8:22 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Character Design , Gameplay

February 26, 2006

PvP with the Longbow Elite

Tonight was the LE Meet-n-Beat, which very much lived up to its name. The LE focus on PvP in the various zones that allow for that, and sundry Alliance folks (including Psi-clone) joined up to patrol Warburg with them in two teams.

Okay, first off, confirmed every suspicion I've ever had about PvP, i.e., unless you're someone who's crafted your character for it, it's pretty much an exercise in frustration. Unless you like getting gacked by high-level stalkers (or are one yourself).

On the other hand, it did allow for play of a scenario that would not be possible (or, if possible, would not be nearly as fun) in a PvE zone, one which has a long tradition in comics history, to wit: Oh my God! Those aren't the Longbow Elite! They're evil robots made up to look like the Longbow Elite and designed to assassinate the Alliance leadership!

Hilarity ensued, especially with those of us who weren't in on the initial plan. And fun for all that. Certainly made the experience worth it.

Outside of that, played the afternoon and night with Mr. Ravenous and Charity, who dinged 15 and 14 respectively. Yay!


Posted by Dave at 10:04 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Gameplay

February 25, 2006

Progression

Spent most of the afternoon on as Lynn, and, between soloing and PUGging, got her up to nearly 24. She's great in a group with decent healing and buffing, but remains a bit brittle on her own. Not much to easily do about that, alas.

In the evening we hopped on as Psi-clone and Amorpha. I've been feeling apprehensive about playing them, not wanting to deal with AVs and coordination with other heroes and stuff like that. After our last AV battle, I was gun-shy about duoing one.

Instead, we worked on some old story arcs, then tackled our initial AVs with the new Elite Boss settings (with 2 players, we can be up to Rugged, the middle reputation setting, and have the AVs spawn as Elite Bosses).

  1. Black Swan: Dark energy attacks in the Necropolis. The latter meant we could hop directly to her and bypass the various Shadows (which were decent but not spectactular eats).

    Came up as a level 48 Elite Boss (orange). And went down, pretty quickly, as same. I had to cast a couple of heals on Amorpha, but by and large Black Swan was a cream puff for us.

  2. Psychic Babbage: Psychic attacks in the ruined city. Amorpha had this one in her hopper. He came up as another level 48 Elite Boss (orange) for us. Hopped directly to him (the various clockwork in the city conning blue and white), got all our buffs ready, and ... launched.

    As in "ate our launch." I mistimed my initial hit, so he spent some initial focus on me. My psychic defenses were doing okay, Amorpha started whomping on him, things were ...

    Bam. "Gah!" Heal. Heal. Jump. Bam. "Argh." Oh, and look, Amorpha's down, too.

    Hrm. Off to hospital. Replan strategy to actually take dude not just seriously, but seriously.

    Go back. Line up. Prep. Fire off my buffs. Gargle chicklets. Tap the Vanguard medal. Twist the Wedding Band. Initially attack with the Phantom Army on the opposite side of Psychic Babbage.

    And the rest was rought but manageable. He wasted his alpha strike on the phantoms, and we may not have locked him down, but we kept him pretty distracted until we could take him down, down, down.

  3. Dominatrix: Grav controller in a warehouse. We've been on a dozen missions against her, and they've never been very life and death. In this case, she conned as a level 49 elite boss (red). And, after warmup on all her BDSM punks, it was not a very big deal.

    Had her locked down, had her distracted, had her taken care of without a lot of pain and anguish.

Good times. We discoed after that, which we took as a sign that we should call it an evening.

The elite boss versions are giving smaller XP, of course. But as long as we don't die trying to duo them, we should be okay.


Posted by Dave at 11:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Gameplay

Shout-out to my Hostess Homies

What, no Ho Ho's?

this post enabled by airblogging.com.


Posted by Dave at 4:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: True Life

February 24, 2006

Positron Speaks!

Interview with Mark Miller, a/k/a Positron, on upcoming CoX stuff. Some highlights ...

Q) Are there any plans to 'upgrade' some of the older CoH zones to include things that can be seen in some of the newer CoH zones and CoV, like mob patrols or mobs damaging each other? If so, which zones are going to see the facelifts first?

Yeah, we are starting with the lower end zones first. Atlas Park, Galaxy City, and Kings Row are getting the old "wave and walk" cops removed from them, and we are adding in patrolling Paragon Police officers.

War Witch has also gone in and created a lot of environmental dialog to liven up those zones. In addition the textures and graphics in the CoH zones will be brought up to the quality seen in CoV over the next couple issues.

Which all sounds very spiffy, except for the CoV graphics coming to CoH, to the degree that they impact performance.

Q) Another big talking point are trenchcoats. What are the current state of trenchcoats in CoH/V? When can players expect to see them implemented?

NPCs are getting them in issue 7. The Thugs in the Thug Mastermind powerset will have them, as will some of the new Paragon Police. Players will get them this year, but they will be a "prestige" piece that you have to earn in some way.

So looking forward to a trenchcoat. I think Mr. Azure would look stunning in one.

Q) There are some differences between the powersets available to heroes and villains in the CoH/V world. What are the plans to allow this difference in available powersets to be reduced? Are there any powersets that are seen to be hero- or villain-exclusive? Will Plant Control remain a villains-only power because plants are naturally evil?

I wouldn't say that plants are naturally evil, but weeds on the other hand... What's the difference between a plant and a weed? A plant dies when you try to keep it alive, and a weed lives when you try to kill it.

That being said, Geko and I discussed just the other day how we are going to get some of the CoV powersets over to the CoH Archetypes. Stay tuned.

It's a tough one. I think it's good that there are differences between CoV and CoH -- but, by the same token, it would be great to have power X over in game Y ...

Q) On a personal note, I just have to ask: is a Dual Pistols powerset anywhere in terms of new powers that will be introduced to CoH/V or is it something that doesn't even appear on the dev whiteboard?

I own the Criterion Collection versions of both The Killer and Hard Boiled... you can safely assume it's on MY whiteboard.

I see a flurry of trenchcoated pistol-wielders coming on. And there's nothing wrong with that.


Posted by Dave at 11:59 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Resources & Rules

February 21, 2006

This and that

Late afternoon soloing with Lynn. Got into a PUG that showed promise, but turned into a minor fiasco. Way too many people with knockback blasts, which meant ...

  1. My chance of lining up anyone for the Shadow Maul cone dropped to nearly zero.
  2. My chance of hitting anyone more than once without running after their flying body dropped to nearly zero.
  3. The chance (in the large city map we were on) of taking out one group without throwing someone back into, thus aggroing, another group, dropped to nearly zero.

Managed to not die for most of the mission, at which point -- the one sane person on the team (besides me) having discoed, I took my leave. Not something I do lightly in mid-mission, but the chance of it being finished any time soon seemed very slender.

Ran over to Striga later. Perfected assassin/ninja tactics with her doing various hunt missions (having found her oddly fragile vs. Warriors as yet). Managed to get out of debt, and nearly to 23.

With Margie, after dinner, ran Mr and Mrs Azure. Dinged 16 with them both, which means Integration for me (yay). Rediscovered along the way how nasty Abominations are en masse, and determined we'd rather lose XP by letting the Mrs. confuse them (esp. the Embalmed) than lose XP via debt.

That minor hiccup aside, I was very please by how we did with them, again. They have many of the strengths of the PC/A team (not surprising, as they have very similar power sets).

Engaged in witty Azure banter, but the Coalition channel remains intermittent -- occasional flurry of traffic, with lots of dead silence in-between.


Posted by Dave at 11:10 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Gameplay

New patch

Details here.

Nothing all that radical. Just plan on the download before you get on.


Posted by Dave at 10:14 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Resources & Rules

Illness and a Good Diet

After my last round of conference calls, I tried to take it easy for the day, recovering from my throat infection. Eventually spent some time on as Honor and as Lynn, ran in a few PUGs, continued apace.

After dinner, signed on with Ho Ho to join in on the Hostess Heroes. Ran (yet once again) the Valentines Day missions, and ran into the increasing problems of (a) too many people to comfortably fit on one team, (b) too broad a range of levels, and (c) too few obsessively-driven mission leaders, such that we spent a lot of time standing around.

Eventually broke up into two teams, and mine ran off to the Hollows. Made a lot of progress, had fun, etc. etc.


Posted by Dave at 8:45 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
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February 20, 2006

Unheroic

The weekend was kind of minimally CoHy after the Faathim game ... Saturday night was our church dinner party, Sunday I was traveling (and got into the hotel late).

Did play a short bit Sunday afternoon with the Azures, which was, as always, fun.

Despite lack of Stamina and having a non-stop attack chain, Mr. A's endurance never budges (even with Sprint on). Of course, that's a bit deceptive, since, as a Regen A big part of that is, with Regen, he's got Quick Recovery. Another part is that he doesn't have an toggles running (so far) -- that changes next level).

But he's a pretty decent scrapper, and Mrs. A's support Mind Control is damned nice, too. They are, in many ways, the flip side of PC/A. An enjoyable pair to play.


Posted by Dave at 1:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Character Design , Gameplay

February 18, 2006

Faathim the Kind

Ran the Faathim Saga (Shadow Shard #3, I believe) tonight. Took much less time than expected -- we started rolling aorund 8, and were done by a bit after Midnight.

A lot of the TF is "defeat 50 X in Shard Zone Y," which wasn't all that exciting. There were a few "regular" missions.

The climactic battle was ... well, not all that challenging.

On the other hand, it was a great group -- Shock.Therapy, Hyperthermian, Psi-clone, Amorpha, Puck Bunny, Li Nakamura, Kinetica, Kessa. Any time spent with that group is well worth it -- and when we encountered resistance, we blew through it.

PC and A both dinged 48. No more sidekicking! Since we were 47 and we had 50s in the group, most of the opposition were purple and red, which helped the XP gain for us.

And, for the record -- Fly is definitely the way to go in the Shard. (Recall Friend was pretty damned useful, too.)

A nice evening.


Posted by Dave at 12:41 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Gameplay

Buy low, sell high

Today's trivia item:

  1. To buy a level 45 SO Healing from Crimson (a normal contact on PI) costs 108K. To buy it from Ghost Falcon (the "store" contact on PI) costs only 54K, a 50% savings. Buying from GF makes sense.

  2. Selling a level 53 SO EndRed to Ghost Falcon will net you 14.5K. Selling the same SO to a "real" store on Talos will net you 22.3K, a 50% (or so) benefit. Selling to GF makes no sense. (Unless, of course, you count in the marginal convenience factor -- you can sell everything to GF, but going from him to, say, 3 stores on Talos, will take you an extra 5 minutes or so).

FYI.


Posted by Dave at 12:32 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Resources & Rules

February 17, 2006

Diverse Hands II

Continued on with the odd mash-ups between heroes and villains. Lynn Calodo and Kazima joined up with some folks for the Hero/Villain quests (Lynn dinged, Kazima dinged shorly thereafter), then later, over on Virtue, Honor the Flag and Copper Mountain joined in (Honor dinged once, Copper dinged twice).

I'm not all that devoted to the badges, but the gameplay is always good fun.

I need, though, to make a point this afternoon of getting everyone logged in long enough to get the Heart of Xness badge and the toga piece (though very few folks I have, if any, will ever go for the toga thing -- well, maybe Velvet). Not sure who, if anyone, I want to still run through the Valentines stories. Torchy, probably, and maybe Velvet. Possibliy Eliza Dee, just because I miss playing her. Heck, we should probably see if we can push the Azures through ("You're 'Beautiful,' darling." "You're 'Beautiful,' too, dear.").

The disads of so many alts is coming back to bite us. Though, to be honest, if I *don't* run those mishes any more, I think that would be fine. It's the teaming and gameplay on them I'm enjoying, not (once again) going through an incredibly laggy Arachos set.

Honor continues to proceed apace, development-wise. I discovered that she's still not able to tank a half-dozen orange Arachnos types. Getting better, though, and I seem to have stabilized my endurance needs, even with Energy Melee consumption.

Lynn -- is now tied for 4th highest character in my stable, which is mildly alarming. (Though Margie's soloist, Blue Point, is now tied for second in hers.) It was kind of cool Lynn ending up as one of the more powerful characters in the Valentines group (even when we were facing the right level of baddies). I had some fun playing her, too.

She's joined up in the new "Nexus Program" (the revised Allies of the Alliance). We'll see how that goes. In related news, I've dropped the (briefly joined) "OOC RP" chat channel, given some folks who've subsequently migrated to it. Still finding the "Alliance OOC" to be a lot of fun and meeting my OOC needs.

And briefly got on as PC to get the CoJ tied into the Nexus and the Longbow Elite. It will be interesting to see how (or if) that latter group stays tied to the Alliance, and how each will affect the other.


Posted by Dave at 6:22 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Consortium of Justice , Gameplay

February 16, 2006

Diverse hands

Tried to continue the Snap missions last night with Christmas Present and Mr. Ravenous, but, even dialed down to Villainous, still had major problems. The spectrals were smash resistant, and their and the arrow-slinger debuffs were slowing our attacks even further.

Got a request from Doyce for a Virtue hero to assist in similar efforts. Ended up with, instead, him and Ana and Jackie and BD and Sword joining us. Much, much fun -- a good group to run with, both playwise and banter-wise.

Mr. R dinged to 14, so ... travel power! Huzzah!

Reorganized after that arc was finished to a similar team (only with, for us, Fazenda and Araware) to do the Ganymede missions again. Which made (with Pizzaz) two Emp/Nrg Defenders, which was kind of fun (as took turns being the first by a half-second to do targeted or area heals).

Again, good banter, fun times.

Nice evening. It's actually been kind of fun doing stuff with a variety of different characters (both ours and others). We'll be finally getting back to Psi-clone/Amorpha this weekend, but it's been kind of nice taking a break.

For the record (and for anyone who is confused, which sounds to be many from chatter):

  1. Any toon that signs on in the Valentines time frame will get the Heart of Xness badge and the toga costume part.

  2. There are various exclusive badges available in the various PocketD missions during this period -- the Hero/Villain missions, for example, are exclusively in this period. Not sure if that's true for the DJ Zero mission.

  3. If you give someone your CoV trial code and they then upgrade to a real account in the timeframe, then you (and they) will also get the laurel wreath and sandals costume pieces.


Posted by Dave at 8:24 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | Edit
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February 15, 2006

Graphic results

So Margie was having ongoing problems with the graphics on her machine, even after the card was replaced. Strange texture flashing and invisible buildings and other oddities.

Many mutters about CoX graphic tweaks and searching and cursing ensues for some weeks.

Finally, I suggest, "Hey, I just saw another mention of that '-useTexEnvCombine' tweak -- let me install it on your machine."

Margie, desperate, agreed.

So while she was upstairs kissing Kitten good night, I opened up the shortcut ...

... and saw it was already there.

And ... um ... realized I had put it in after her card went south and we were trying to run it on the native onboard graphics. And I realized ...

... that was probably causing the problem now.

I never even thought of claiming I'd "fixed" it when I took the switch out.

I was just glad to see Margie's graphics back to normal. :-)


Posted by Dave at 5:44 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: True Life

Valentine's Day

Well, once our yummy dinner was done, we hopped on ...

... well, that was after I'd commented to Margie that it was about this time last year that I'd roped her in persuaded her that playing CoH might be fun ... and that we'd been doing it for a year now ... and, damn, it's been fun doing it with her.

Enough soppy stuff.

... and, of course, we had to play Mr. and Mrs. Azure a bit. Always fun, even if CC is a bit less chattery than before.

After that, we decided we'd do some Pocket D stuff. Mr. Ravenous from the villain side, Christmas Present from the heroes.

Well, the hero side (with Ravenous gimped down to 10) went okay. Actually, it went swimmingly. We tore through Council/Arachnos like knives through butter.

Then we went to the villain missions (with CP SKed to 12).

Yikes.

First off, CP being down a level didn't help. Especially since everything was yellow and orange for me.

My being on ... well the second level of reputation difficulty ("Zillions of 'em, Mr. Rico!") didn't help, either.

So we fought huge gobs of folks and barely survived even with the Drops of goodness from the bartenders. And that was just the first mob. The second was bad, too. The third --

-- well, somewhere in there, we both died. And we decided, since it was latish and I really needed to reset to simple "Villainous," we'd call it an evening.

So, out with a whimper. But still a fun evening.


Posted by Dave at 10:12 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Gameplay , True Life

February 14, 2006

Pantsless in Paragon

By popular demand, evidently:

The bare legs option for Male and Huge body types has been added to an internal build. It will be coming down the QA path and to a server near you soon.

Not exactly my top costume priority, but what the heck.


Posted by Dave at 11:25 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Character Design

Munch

Last night was Monday Munchies. We had a team of 7-8 most of the evening, and did passably well. Aside from one near-TPK, in fact, the missions went pretty smoothly (at least as far as my tank was concerned). We suffered significantly more casualties traveling through the Hollows to our missions than otherwise. Hrm.

No Controllers, which, in a group that size, is odd.

Ho Ho's attack chain started getting wonky mid-evening, which I eventually realized was because my temp lowbie power had gone away, leaving me with two slow axe chops and Brawl. Battleaxe does some nice damage (and amazing knockdown/back), but it's sloooooow (and endurance sucking). I was toying with using my next level for another attack, but I think I'm going to stick with Taunt (control!) and maybe slot some recharge speeds instead.

In other news, Lynn is a desperately short distance away from dinging 22. She's running in Striga at the moment. After some painstaking and difficult soloing of the first ship mission, she got pulled into a PUG of 8 on the same mission, which was basically a non-stop wading through Council (and which netted much XP).

Still need to get her into the new Alliance "Allies" group.

And did some brief before-sending-Margie-to-bed Ravenous/Charity, noodging closer to 14 and travel powers. Just too damned fun.


Posted by Dave at 7:02 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Gameplay

February 13, 2006

Multitasking

Interesting study out on how video gaming helps train the brain to better multitask:

A body of research suggests that playing video games provides benefits similar to bilingualism in exercising the mind. Just as people fluent in two languages learn to suppress one language while speaking the other, so too are gamers adept at shutting out distractions to swiftly switch attention between different tasks.

A new study of 100 university undergraduates in Toronto has found that video gamers consistently outperform their non-playing peers in a series of tricky mental tests. If they also happened to be bilingual, they were unbeatable.

“The people who were video game players were better and faster performers,” said psychologist Ellen Bialystok, a research professor at York University. “Those who were bilingual and video game addicts scored best — particularly at the most difficult tasks.”

See? All this CoH/CoV play is just to train my brain! It's good for me!


Posted by Dave at 11:05 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: True Life

I am not an animal! Well, actually ...

Spent a goodly amount of time this weekend continuing to march Mr. Ravenous and Charity at Home up to travel powers (14) and SF eligibility (15). Marched them all the way up to 13, in fact, which was quite nice.

The two of them are going like gangbusters. Charity contributes shields and heals, backed up with some nice debuffing attacks, while Mr. R. takes the baddies apart. I took Dull Pain at 12 and have hit it only once since then. Biggest problem I have at the moment, besides desperately needing Stamina, is status protection -- stuns from RIP billy clubs and knockdown/back from shotguns. I need to carry more purples, but beyond that ...

... well, I realize I keep trying to design Mr. R. as a Tank, which he's not. He's not even a Scrapper. He's a Brute. So defensive powers (the Invuln side of things) needs to take second place to More Attacks. Except, at the moment, I'm stuck in the drive to travel powers and Stamina -- plus Unyielding, to deal with those status issues -- which means I can't take another attack until 22, which just sucks.

Here's what I have (planned thru 44) for him so far:



Exported from version 1.5C of CoH Planner
http://joechott.com/coh

Archetype: Brute
Primary Powers - Ranged : Super Strength
Secondary Powers - Support : Invulnerability

01 : Resist Physical Damage damres(01)
01 : Jab acc(01) dam(3) acc(7) dam(17) endred(17) dam(31)
02 : Punch acc(02) dam(3) acc(5) dam(11) endred(15) dam(27)
04 : Temp Invulnerability damres(04) damres(5) damres(7) endred(9) endred(15) endred(34)
06 : Swift runspd(06)
08 : Haymaker acc(08) dam(9) acc(11) dam(23) endred(23) dam(27)
10 : Combat Jumping endred(10)
12 : Dull Pain recred(12) recred(13) recred(13) hel(31) hel(33) hel(33)
14 : Super Jump endred(14) jmp(34) jmp(36) jmp(36)
16 : Unyielding endred(16) damres(37) damres(40) damres(40)
18 : Health hel(18) hel(19) hel(19)
20 : Stamina endrec(20) endrec(21) endrec(21)
22 : Knockout Blow acc(22) acc(25) dam(25) dam(36) dam(37)
24 : Taunt recred(24) rng(37)
26 : Rage recred(26) recred(46) recred(46)
28 : Invincibility endred(28) defbuf(29) defbuf(29) endred(31) thtbuf(33) thtbuf(34)
30 : Resist Elements damres(30)
32 : Resist Energies damres(32)
35 : Hurdle jmp(35)
38 : Unstoppable damres(38) recred(39) recred(39) recred(39) damres(40) damres(43)
41 : Foot Stomp acc(41) acc(42) endred(42) dam(42) dam(43) endred(43)
44 : Hurl acc(44) acc(45) dam(45) dam(45) dam(46)



The 40-plus stuff is provisional to whatever the Epic powers turn out to be for Brutes.

I'd love to get Knockout Blow earlier, but just can't see where to fit it in.


Posted by Dave at 8:18 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Character Design

February 10, 2006

Toga! Toga! Toga!

For all of you who are just longing for togas, but can't afford it, there will be a free tailoring session token handed out to everyone on Valentine's Day.

Actually, the toga thing doesn't appeal to me, but I have a number of characters who I'd love to get sandles for (which implies running the missions, of course).


Posted by Dave at 9:46 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Character Design

Slog between dimensions

Ran the Hero-side Pocket-D missions last night (starting a scosh late) with Amorpha, Mister Thorne, and BD's Gasta Bas.

Death rode on our shoulders the entire way, and, unfortunately, was as busy pecking on our ears as anyone else's.

Problems we had:

  1. There were three of us. Unbalanced. And because we'd started on Amorpha's mission set, the only thing we could do is SK Mr. Thorne to her, and leave Gasta to hang back and spam heals. And, oh, yeah, die a lot from various Arachnos AoE and cone attacks.

  2. Mr. Thorne is way too squishy for all the aggro he draws.

  3. Though fighting at level 47, Mr. Thorne lacked the powers that would come between where he is (17) and there, including some added firepower for the Mercs and better buffs for his team. As a result, his contribution to combat was pitiful -- mostly distractions and horribly slow healing.

    So ... tired ... of that build.

  4. Amorpha had serious "invis" problems from the bad guys, which didn't help her combat abilities any.

So the standard order of combat in the Arachnos part of the mission arc was ...

... We suddenly realize GB has been taken down, along with one or two of the boys.
... The rest of the boys go down faster than I can recreate them.
... Mister Thorne goes down.
... Amorpha survives about half the time.

Mercifully, PocketD has its own healing areas, and plenty of chicklets to buy. It also has some super-buffs to sell, though they didn't seem to help as much as we needed.

*sigh* Finished around 11. Thorne had dinged, Amorpha had gone up a pip, GB was still in debt.

Still have the villain mishes to do -- and Amorpha's already observed that 11 of her powers go "grey" when she exemps down to our level. Should be entertaining.


Posted by Dave at 5:39 AM | Comments (10) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Character Design , Gameplay

February 8, 2006

Valentine's Day Stuff

Evidently some Valentine's Day activities related to the new Pocket D and mixed hero/villain team bits are kicking off for the next few weeks in CoH/CoV. This is evidently in turn related to the new Toga costumes that are now available via the Heart of Light/Darkness Accolades that everyone's getting.

Weird.


Posted by Dave at 2:23 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Resources & Rules

February 7, 2006

Patch of the Day

New patch today.




Pocket D:
- Fixed dance cages so characters cannot get stuck inside them.
Game:
- Improved game stability.



Presumably the dance cage issue has become a "griefing" problem in Pocket D.


Posted by Dave at 3:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
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Stuff, briefly

Hostess Heroes last night. The Hollows turned out to be a bit more problematic than I thought, for a variety of reasons:

That said, it was still a lot of fun, and even those bits didn't take much away from that. A good evening.


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February 4, 2006

The more things change ...

2006-02-04_charity-ravenous.jpgWent ahead and brought Mister Ravenous and Charity at Home over from Virtue to Champion (and the CoI). It's the third time I've done this (I believe I'd originally built him on Champion), but no regrets.

A solid evening of play got us both up to about 8.5. We ran through the Burke path, rather than Kalinda, which made it a bit fresher.

The pair of them work together, and playing a brute just remains plain fun. The comm chatter with them is pretty enjoyable, too.

I look forward to doing more with them and with the CoI.


Posted by Dave at 11:46 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack | Edit
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Best toon seen of late

Ran the other day with "Inside-Out Boy."

Smallish figure, using one of the alien or chitinous or some other sort of rough-textured exteriors, all in red and pink. With veins ...

... and he was a Spines scrapper, of course, so he looked even more messed up then.

Would never want to run him, to be honest, but it was very, very nicely done.


Posted by Dave at 11:52 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
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Characters in review

HEROES

VILLAINS


Posted by Dave at 10:12 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
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Evil intent

Did a fair amount of inconclusive running about with Honor the Flag (ding ding) and Fr. Frank (ding) yesterday afternoon while Margie was at the office, then in the evening ended up joining in a big CoI confab -- three missions, I believe, all told.

Fun group, esp. a combo of new players (relatively speaking) and old. Dinged a level with Mr. Thorne and Undone to 17.

And ... Margie and I realized we just weren't having any fun with the characters per se. Fun group, and fun concepts, but I find Mr Thorne ponderous to maneuver in battle, and Margie finds Undone too squishy in a group setting.

So seriously considering re-rolling Mister Ravenous and Charity at Home over onto Champions and into the CoI (they were originally rolled up for the Elitists on Virtue). That means tossing away 11 levels or so, but I think it would be worth it. Actually, I just want to run a Brute (so Eliza Dee would do), but Mr. R is way too much fun.

We'll see how it goes, timewise. Still have plenty to in Paragon, too.


Posted by Dave at 8:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
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February 3, 2006

Knights night

Last night was the first (monthly?) Knights Night, a Storm Knights gathering, organized by Mal. We had an amazing turn-out -- at least a dozen on at one point, and some beyond that, too. Fazenda and Araware got on earlier than I'd expected, did some initial teaming in Skyway; shifted over to a team with Baron Rufus and Silver-Streak, et al., fighting Nemmies and Rikti via Portal Corp (and let me tell you -- negotiating through PI at level 16 is a hoot); nearly went to the new dance club; ended up going back to Portal Corp to help Pummelcite's team take down Psychic Babbage ...

2006-02-02_sk-babbage.jpg... which last was, nearly, a cakewalk. No deaths. No serious injuries. We had more trouble and took more time getting to the dude than actually taking him down. Mal spent more time Deceiving his attendant clocks and getting them to fight one another than we did in finally wiping out Psychic Babbage.

That was helped by having a lot of Controllers -- the managed to lock down PB in ice for a while, and Mal even managed to Deceive him briefly -- plus three bubblers of various sorts, plus a couple of folks with healing, plus plenty of damage-dealers, plus a strong tank build in Pummelcite. (The pic shows, by the way, from L-R, Starrboy, Kessa, Araware, Fazenda, Mal, Puck Bunny and Noelle Frost -- Pummy is on the opposite side of the frozen PB, keeping his attention.)

Both Araware and Fazenda did end up eating dirt some four times over the course of the evening, most often in conjunction with being out of SK range whilst in PI or beyond the Portal. Way too easy to get one-shotted. In at least one case, everyone in the group went down.

It was interesting shifting, in-between battles and missions, between "energy blaster" mode and "heal spammer mode. Tried to use Faz's "witty banter" keys, which was fun, and I think I managed to contribute pretty well. Early-on tuning of the energy blasts to avoid untoward knockback were countered by ending up on an early team that was riddled with energy blasters -- Kessa (NRG/NRG) and another EMP/NRG Defender. Almost seems to be a requirement for the Knights ...

It was great seeing the turn-out, and heartened me considerably.

Since the SKs are still in CC with at least some of the CU teams, I did end up hearing more chatter there -- and got some nice examples of exactly the sort of thing I don't miss having during my game sessions. I leave that to the SK management, though -- I can put up with it on rare occasions. :-)

Didn't get into the Pocket-D club, but it's going to be convenient having something that bridges Talos, FF, and Kings Row. We already "borrow" the FP porters to get to some of the hazard zones. Between that and Pocket-D, transport time should be even further reduced.

A good evening.


Posted by Dave at 6:21 AM | Comments (12) | TrackBack | Edit
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February 2, 2006

New patch today

Patch notes [And my notes]:

COMBINED NOTES

Powers:

* Updated Kinetics/Increase Density text and buff Icon. The Mez protection of Increase Density will stack, but the damage resistance and the slow debuff will not stack.
* Targeted AoE powers now properly hit moving primary targets; this includes most Tanker attacks. [Yay!]
* Fixed bug that caused power animations on some teleports to play twice [Yay!]

Training Room:

* Character transfers will now transfer Influence/Infamy to the Training Room.

Arena:

* Fixed awards for Scheduled Tournaments. It is no longer possible to actually lose ranking by winning a Tournament.
* Rated Gladiator matches now award points correctly to the match victor.

Paragon Dance Party:

* DJ Zero's transdimensional dance club has been renovated and expanded.

Rewards:

* XP earned for defeating Archvillains/Heroes has been doubled. [Yay!!]
* Defeating an Archvillain/Hero will result in a random SO Enhancement 3 levels higher than the level of the AV being awarded to everyone who received XP (if you have inventory space). [Yay!!]
* Defeating an Archvillain/Hero will result in a random Large Inspiration being awarded to everyone who received XP (if you have inventory space). [Yay!!]
* Defeating an Archvillain/Hero while in Supergroup mode will award you a piece of Salvage 100% of the time. [Yay!!]

UI:

* Improve movement in "Free Camera" mode: Pressing up will now move the player towards the top of the screen, instead of the last direction of movement. Rotate will now rotate the player and the camera instead of just the player in. Click to move no longer cancels autorun.

Bases:

* Fixed bugs with Move Room function that allowed players to create rooms that are impossible to get to.
* Fixed several bugs with Base data not updating properly when a new Item of Power Mount is added to the base.
* Characters will no longer be able to rez to Base Reclaimators from the Tutorial Zones. Characters who did this and then used base telepads to enter city zones would not be given any level 1 contacts.

Miscellaneous:

* Fixed issue where the DE Eminator would sometimes not spawn. [It will be interesting to see how Eden plays now ...]


CITY OF HEROES

Powers:

* Modified Blaster/Energy Manipulation/Bone Smasher. Increased its energy Damage, decreased its smashing damage (no net change). Increased its unresistable damage in PvP to its proper 30% .

City Zones:

* Independence Port and Talos Island: fixed bug that where the Ghost ship would sometimes get stuck in one location. [Boo! [Ha!] ]


CITY OF VILLAINS

Powers

* Gamblers Cut for Ninja Blade was inadvertently giving double the critical damage. This has been corrected.
* Fixed some Combat text for Mastermind/Mercenaries Player Assault Rifle. [Hopefully including the spelling "Safety" properly.]
* Fixed Mastermind/Mercenaries/Commando Grenade Launcher range. [Hopefully increasing them. :-) ]
* Freedom Corps Sonic Grenades no longer have an irresistible hold.

Tasks

* In Hardcase missions, wave attacks properly spawn after protection OR destruction of obelisk. Mission can now complete in either instance.
* Caleb is fixed and should spawn now. Bring on the madness!

Tailor

* Arachnos Cape unlocked by buying the Special Edition DVD for City of Villains now appears correctly in costume selection.


Posted by Dave at 11:44 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack | Edit
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Return to the Rogue Isles

Finally, after way too long, broke out Mister Thorne and Undone for some CoV play. Feeling vaguely guilty, since they are SG leaders and all that.

Hrm. Granted that the super-team of PC/A can spoil one, the DPS for the pair we ran sure felt slow. Nice to see the Mastermind's Mercs chewing up the competition, but Dark is slooooooooow (which I remember every time I create a someone with Dark Defender powers), and Stalkers are fraaaagile.

It was good to cleanse the palate, and we're started on a fun story arc (Ghost Widow and Wretch), but I don't see us shifting our attention away from Paragon as a standard thing, at least not with this pair. Maybe to run out Eliza Dee and Mistress Bacchante, to get them (at 10) up to the other two's levels (16), then partner swap to see how that chemistry works.


Posted by Dave at 6:35 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
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