Blog of Heroes: February 2007 Archives

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February 28, 2007

Whazzup?

Our gameplay has been a bit constricted of late -- too many projects and activities and the like.

I did get on a nice PUG last night with Honor and got her dinged up to 18.5 (like all tanks, I long for Stamina). We did a bit of running about over the weekend with Torchy/Hildy, earning about a pip (not bad for lvl 48), and did a bit as well with Rita & Runt. But, overall, not much ...

Posted by Dave at 11:03 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Gameplay

February 21, 2007

Statesman's Taskforce

New info on the upcoming Statesman's Taskforce. I am definitely looking forward to cracking out Psi-clone for this.

Positron says:

The Lord Recluse Strike Force, which made it into Issue 7, was our way of getting Hamidon-level Enhancements into the hands of the Villains for City of Villains. We needed something that was difficult, and Hamidon-level difficult, but we didn’t want to just regurgitate Hamidon…we wanted something cool. We wanted something where you fought the signature Heroes of the City of Heroes franchise.

I can't say I like the imagery that "regurgitating Hamidon" provides.

We accomplished that goal, but in the end some of the Archetypes felt left out, since they didn’t have the build to contribute to the huge Archvillain fights that the Lord Recluse Strike Force was built around (we took our learnings forward from this).

I'm glad they're not just, um, "regurgitating" LASF.

Fighting the signature characters was cool, but it was also something that was exclusively in the hands of the Villains. We really wanted something where the Heroes could have a chance at taking down the signature characters from the Rogue Isles. We wanted Heroes to see some of the cool things we did for the Villains since not every player is into playing 'the dark side'.

Yay!

[...] The mission starts out with Statesman telling you that Arachnos is up to something, something big. They are building something in Grandville of unknown power and use, but it is obvious that it’s more than a simple broadcast antenna that Lord Recluse claims it to be. Your orders are simple. Get to the factory near Grandville and shut it down.

Here we had a chance to have some 'mayhem mission' type action, with your team of Heroes causing havoc in the WebFac, destroying vital pieces to the array in Grandville. This was something that players asked for when we introduced Safeguard missions. They wanted to go to the Rogue Isle and bust stuff up. Now they get to bust stuff up, but with a purpose.

Oh, joy! Mayhem for heroes! Next up -- Safeguard for villains! (Yes, you could rationalize it.)

I don't want to spoil too many of the surprises, suffice it to say that players will be encountering, and engaging, many of the more powerful NPCs that Arachnos has to offer. Dr. Aeon plays a key role (several, actually), as does the Arachnos Flier. We also chose some prime locations for the mission maps, a lot of stuff that your average City of Heroes player wouldn't normally get to see.

Also nice. Not only does that give a bit of advert space for CoV, it makes it all the more fresh for CoHers.

Oh, and the final battle isn't simply 'smash your most powerful attacks until Lord Recluse goes down'. We wanted there to be a reason to have Archetypes other than Blasters and Defenders on your team. Controllers will find themselves greatly desired in the final battle if the team wants to have any chance of winning. Our goal was to make sure that all the Archetypes had something to do that could mean the difference between success and defeat.

And that sounds truly kick-ass (speaking as a Controller likely to be involved ...)

'Being a Hero' is the driving force behind Statesman's Task Force. Every mission leads up to the ultimate confrontation where, upon success, players will be able to stand in Atlas Park and proudly display to all onlookers that they have Saved the World. Isn’t that what being a hero is all about?

I am quite jazzed over this.

Posted by Dave at 4:40 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Resources & Rules

Tweaking rezzes

There's some changes in the "rooting" effects of some of the rezzes listed in the patch notes below (that's for the Test instance, mind you), and immobilize effects have been put in. Castle explains ...

When we use the term rooting, it refers to a flag set in the actual animation sequence that prevents any player action. This includes moving and using any powers or inspirations, even breakfrees. Rooting is always something that's set in an animation, not the power itself and since a lot of powers share animations, this has led to a bit of flip flopping between powers rooting or not rooting.

While we were looking at click powers for normalizing which ones should root or not we came across self-rez powers, most of which are sharing two animations. The first is the spiraling up and then floating back down to the ground that Rise of the Phoenix, Restore Essence, and a few other powers use. The other is the basic 'get up from belly' animation that Revive and most inspirations use. The first was not rooted, so you could start acting as soon as the power fired off. Unfortunately, this animation is on a higher priority than every other possible animation. This allows you to move and/or attack and avoid being rooted while the self-rez animation continues to play. The second animation was rooted for the entire 4 second animation. This meant if you used an awaken in combat there was 4 seconds when you were pretty much a sitting duck. You couldn't even use a breakfree to recover from the disorient of an awaken until the animation was completely finished.

Neither one of these was really where we wanted self rez powers to be. So instead of rooting all self-rez power animations, Castle added an immbolize effect to the powers themselves and the root was removed from both animations. This solved the issues with both animations. There will still be a period of time after rezing yourself where you won't be able to move, but you will be able to use inspirations, turn on toggles, etc. The first animation was also shortened a bit to make the immobilization period consistent between both animations.

Makes sense. Not that I rez all that often ...

On a related, broader note about actions and rooting ...

We're looking into these inconsistencies in powers rooting and not rooting. This whole process has been a jumble because so many power share animations and "rooting" is something that's set in the animation itself, not the power definition. So I'm often undoing things I've fixed before by fixing things further down the road, not realizing they're both using the same animation ... and then later unfixing the original fix by re-fixing the unfixed fix.

This is why some click powers that should have been rooted were briefly un-rooted as they were sharing animations with toggle powers that were un-rooted. This is also why some toggle powers that should be un-rooted are once again rooting. Your incredible diligence in testing these changes and reporting them here on the forums has been an immeasurable help in getting everything working the way it should be. We can't thank you enough for that. Please continue to report powers that don't follow the rules for rooting.

Toggle Powers:

Any toggle that damages or debuffs an enemy in any way is considered an attack and will root the player while activating.

Any toggle that affects yourself and/or allies will not root you while activating.

Any toggle that only affects yourself will not cause you to be rooted while activating.

Click Powers:[list]

Any click power that damages or debuffs an enemy in any way is considered an attack and will root the player while activating.

Any click power that is a PBAOE ally buff, single target ally buff, or single target ally heal will root the player while activating.

Any click power that is an PBAOE ally heal will not root.

Any click power that is a self only buff or self only heal will not root.

Any click power that is a 'tier 9' power (Unstoppable, Moment of Glory, Elude, etc) will root the player while activating.

There can be exceptions to any of the above rules as deemed necessary.

Attacks have priority over any of the other rules. So if a power is a PBAOE ally heal and debuffs an enemy's to-hit for example, it's going to root.

We tried to come up with a set that made sense to us and generally followed how things already worked in game, so only a few things needed to be changed. There were actually a lot fewer click power animations that changed because of these rules than toggle animations. Also, toggle animations that root will do so for 1.5 seconds after which point the animation is interruptible by other animations or player actions. Click power rooting durations are not consistent and probably never will be, however we are willing to more closely examine any powers that you feel root for too long of a duration.

And a note on Inertial Reduction for all you kineticists out there:

We're also hearing your concerns about some AOE click buffs, like Inertial Reduction, being left as rooted animations. In that particular case we contend that Inertial Reduction is not a travel power. It's literally an Ally buff and thus should follow the same rules as all PBAOE Ally buffs. However we understand that this is often used as a replacement for travel power and we're looking into ways to make it less cumbersome to use in that method. No promises that it will change, just that we're looking at it.

Posted by Dave at 4:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Resources & Rules

Test server stuff

New patch notes (i.e., expect much of this to go Live real soon now unless there are serious glitches):

Now Testing in the Training Room: Version 13.20070215.0 - Feb. 20th, 2007

Estimated time of arrival: 3 PM Pacific / 5 PM Central / 6 PM Eastern.

HIGHLIGHTS

The bulk of this update includes changes to the address stability and performance issues, including:

• Correcting a problem that could cause the game’s framerate to drop substantially when exiting a Mission.

• Special textures and objects in missions should no longer be invisible. This addresses a problem with special missions like Frostfire, PWNZ, etc. [Yay!]

• Altered some power's graphical effects to reduce framerate impact and standardize click power rooting.

• Added fixes to address a problem that could cause the client to crash when viewing trenchcoats and custom capes in certain situations. While we believe that this issue should be corrected in this version of the game if you do experience a client crash that brings up a dialog to send the report in, please do so. These reports will be very helpful to determine if we have indeed squashed this bug.

Game

• Corrected a server issue that could lead to instability.

• Added text to distinguish different slow effects on power enhancement tooltips.

Animations and Power Effects

All click power activation rooting has been normalized to follow the below rules:
• All powers that damage or debuff enemies will root.
• All ally buffs (AOE and single target) will root.
• AOE Heals will not root.
• Self Buffs/Heals will not root.
• Tier 9 powers such as Unstoppable, Moment of Glory, and Force of Nature will root you for 1.5 seconds while activating.
• Self-Rez powers are a special case. They will not root you while activating but they have had a 4 second immobilize effect added to them. You will still be able to use powers/inspirations, turn on toggles, or attack. For powers like Rise of the Phoenix which have a secondary damage component and should be rooted, this prevents them from being less effective. Rez powers like Revive and inspiration rezes will now only be immobilized instead of a root. Consequently, the animation for Rise of the Phoenix, Shadow Maw, and the Kheldian self-rez have been slightly sped up to account for this change.

• The following powers will now transition into a more appropriate standing animation cycle when they finish. This does not change how the power functions, but only the animations it switches to after it’s done playing the power’s graphical effect and animation.

Wedding Band, Instant Healing, Inertial Reduction, Hurricane, Murky Cloud, Obsidian Shield, Invincibility

• Soul Storm will once again transition to it’s unique animation cycle after casting.

• Toggle power that now roots: Inky Aspect

• The following powers now root the character in place while the animation and graphical effects play:

Shadow Fall, Adrenaline Boost, Steamy Mist, Group Invisibility

• Added run animation for females with left handed weapons (bow, katana, etc)

Changes to toggle activation rooting:

• Personal Force Field will no longer root during activation

• Force Bubble will now root during activation

• Quills will now root during activation

• Whirlwind will now root during activation. Whirlwind has also been changed so that the spinning animation will restart after using other powers.

• Empathy/Regeneration Aura - Changed animation so that it is not identical to Recovery Aura

• Aid Other/Stimulate/Aid Self - changed animations so they are more properly interrupted by movement and have less “skating”

• Elude’s activation animation will no longer play unless the power is actually recharged and activates.

• Peacebringer/Warshade transform animation will no longer root the player while flying.

• Darkest Night - Added secondary graphical effects to help identify the anchor.

• The graphical effects for all Warshade powers has gone through an optimization pass.

• Ice Armor/Energy Absorption will use its correct animation again.

Powers

• All Self Rez powers now immobilize the player for a set duration.

• All Self Rez powers debt protection period are now set to 60 seconds. Most were set to 20 seconds previously, though a few were at 90 seconds. This is being done to normalize the effect. [Interesting.]

CITY OF HEROES

Powers

• Tanker Invulnerability Invincibility: Fixed a visual error with the graphic tell for the increased To Hit chance. It was being applied to the Tankers enemies, rather than to the Tanker. The actual To Hit value was being applied correctly; this was simply correcting the visual effects.

CITY OF VILLAINS

Powers

• Thermal Radiation – Melt Armor: Graphics optimizations.

Zones

• Reports of the Arachnos Flier have been heard from Grandville.

Posted by Dave at 6:35 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Resources & Rules

February 16, 2007

IO drops

"If I had two dead Teckla, I'd give you one"

Valentine's Day fun from WoW.

(via Les)

Posted by Dave at 6:29 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Humor

February 15, 2007

Too damned much crafting for my taste

If only Real Life was more like an MMORPG.

Posted by Dave at 1:49 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Humor

I9 and More Invention Info

The official I9 pre-announcement announcement is up.

From Doctor Brainstorm [with my comments]:

* There are no recipes that are exclusive to a side. Mako's Bite has just as good a chance of showing up for Heroes as it does for Villains. [That hurts the "RPness" of it, but that's not that big a deal.]

* Individual enemies will NOT have specific recipes or salvage that you can only get from them. Defeating Captain Mako will not get you a piece from the Mako's Bite set. Every enemy you defeat (within the right level range) can possibly drop a Mako's Bite enhancement. [Again, that hurts the RPness a little bit, but not that big. And there are ties to Story Arcs, so that makes sense.]

* An enemy defeat that produces a Recipe will only produce ONE Recipe, not one for everyone on the team. (Yes, this was why we put in the much maligned Loot Message, which was since removed). [Still cool. And I think chat is a better way to deal with that.]

* Giant Monsters do not drop recipes. They drop Salvage, but not recipes. This is by design.

* Some parts of the sets are only available as Story Arc rewards, Task Force rewards, or Trial rewards (Respec missions and Hamidon are Trials). So players looking to collect a full set are going to want to do all of the above, not just defeat enemies. [I have mixed feelings on this. On the one hand it makes sense, it does encourage that sort of activity, etc. On the other hand, it requires that activity to get something that actually can help you in-game -- that's been true for the accolades and for the XP for badges, but this is significantly more impacting. On the gripping hand, nobody is forcing anyone to get IOs.]

* We fully expect the Consignment House (and Black Market) to become a good place to look for Enhancements to complete your set if you can't find teams for TFs or Trials. [Which makes up for the above. Best reason for these places to exist I've heard.]

* The Influence/Infamy trading limit is being raised. [Huzzah! Now, will they improve the interface even more?]

Doctor Brainstorm is actually kind of an interesting guy -- did you know he invented the Level Bar for heroes and villains?

Posted by Dave at 6:51 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Resources & Rules

February 13, 2007

Positron on I9, Part 2

An example of Enhancements from the Invention system (from the same MMORPG.com article):

Well, all the recipes you find while playing the game are multi-purpose Enhancements, or something equally as cool.

Here’s an example:

Sting of the Manticore (a set of 6) - Slots into any Sniper power

Accuracy/Damage

Damage/Endurance Reduction

Accuracy/Interrupt/Range

Damage/Interrupt/Recharge

Damage/Endurance/Recharge

Toxic DoT Proc

If you have 2 Enhancements in the set slotted: Bonus to your Regeneration rate
If you have 3 Enhancements in the set slotted: The above plus Energy/Negative Energy resistance
If you have 4 Enhancements in the set slotted: The above plus Overall Damage Boost
If you have 5 Enhancements in the set slotted: The above plus Overall Recharge Rate Boost
If you have all 6 Enhancements in the set slotted: The above plus Toxic damage resistance

I’ll talk about the Enhancements. The last one in the list is a Proc, meaning a procedure that has a chance of happening. Every time you fire your sniper power with the Toxic DoT Proc Enhancement slotted in it, there is a chance your target gets hit with a Toxic Damage over Time effect as well as the normal damage and effect of your Sniper attack.

The other Enhancements are all multi-purpose. This means that their overall bonuses are lower than a single-purpose Enhancement, but they fill multiple rolls for only a single slot.

Next we have the set bonuses. The numbers are not set in stone what the bonuses are going to be, but as you can see, you get a lot of little advantages out of your Sniper power that you normally wouldn’t have. These bonuses make collecting sets highly desirable, as they can shore up holes in your character that you didn’t have any other way of shoring up before.

Okay, so that actually looks pretty cool. You can do any, some, or all of the Enhancement slots in the set, and get a variety of bonuses on the power (and let's hope this means they've cleaned up the Power Slotting interface) plus some synergistic effects.

One big downside -- everyone's going to have to modify their Guides ...

One thing to keep in mind is that while the new crafted Enhancements have some nice bonuses and set improvements, the design intent is such that they do not completely overshadow the performance of currently available Enhancements. That way, someone who isn’t all that interested in collecting and crafting can play the game as they always have and still have a strong hero or villain. We don’t want this new system to reinvent the game and how people play it, but rather add a new dimension and avenue for fun.

Which is the big threat, of course -- "I can't have an Uber Chararacter unless I get X, Y, and Z." If the "design intent" is met, faboo, because while these things would be nice, I don't see spending all my time with my characters collecting the bits and pieces necessary for them.

And on a related note ...

Well out the gate we have some new costume pieces that you can find the recipes for. We’ve got a bunch more wings for characters to make. The wings we introduced in Issue 8 with Veteran Rewards were really well received and having more wings that are available to everyone has been a popular request. We hope these new wings will make a lot of players happy. And since recipes are tradable, you can give the wing recipe and the salvage needed to make it to a 1st level character so they can have their super-special wings at the start of their careers.

Here's where you lose me. I understand the player side of this, but the contextual setup eludes me. Aside from the cool tech wings, why would you need/get "inventions" to get fairy wings, or dragon wings, or butterfly wings, etc.? (Or, conversely, why should a new player be able tog et dragon wings, but not get demon wings, which are a Vet reward?) Other costume bits, sure, but having broached the whole wings thing with Vet Rewards, I they should have left it all there.

That said, the ability to hand off recipes/salvage to 1st level characters is a nice touch.

And the last bit, on actually doing the inventions thing:

First off you need access to an Invention Worktable. These are inside the Universities in Paragon City and Rogue Isles. For players with a Supergroup base, they can add an Invention Worktable to their base. Built into the table are “Invention Origin” recipes of the 28 standard Enhancements. These “IO’s” act just like normal Enhancements except they do not expire, and their bonus stays static no matter what level you are. Lower level IO’s are strengthened around that of Training Enhancements, mid level IO’s are about the power of Dual Origin Enhancements, and IO’s level 25 and above have about the same punch as current Single Origin Enhancements. Of course the power of the Enhancement is better with level, so high level invented Enhancements are slightly more powerful than the equivalent SO.

You go to the worktable and open up the interface. Here you see what Enhancements you can make with the salvage you currently have. Higher level Enhancements take higher level salvage (i.e., salvage that comes from higher level enemies), so you should always have salvage appropriate to the level of Enhancements you want to build. These “built-in” recipes also have an Influence/Infamy cost to build, but they only take common-level salvage. Uncommon and rare salvage is reserved for use by the one-use recipes you find in the world.

Again, once we actually start being able to use this, it will be interesting to see how straightforward, or how tactical-logistical (see complaints about WoW) this actually is. But this article definitely makes me feel a bit better about the whole thing.

Now, further clarifications from the forums:

Will IOed characters be no better than non-IOed?

What I meant was that normal SO specced characters will not be signifigantly underpowered in the new Invention based (PvE) world. We're making NO changes to enemies to make them tougher, so SO slotted characters will still be able to play the game as they always have. IO slotted characters who stack their bonuses well are probably going to have an easier go in PvE, and have an advantage in PvP (where every little advantage is an edge your opponent doesn't have).

Basically if you and your group want the (PvE) game to remain "the same", it will. You'll just be getting Invention oriented rewards that you never use, but the difficulty of the (PvE) missions you are doing are not going to increase forcing you into a system you didn't want to partake in.

One of our goals with new systems is to make sure that players who don't want to use it are not punished for playing the game like they always have. The game is totally playable and enjoyable without badges, bases, trials, task forces, new zones... but we add them to give players more options if they want them.

Which makes sense -- but it does mean that IOed characters will be able to shorten the "grind," ratchet up to higher difficulties, etc. Is that "unfair?" I'm sure some will argue that, but I won't -- yet.

Now, whether new zones and enemies will be designed around non-IOed characters ... will be a real test.

How powerful will IOs be?

We tried to make it so that if you had a full set of Set-based IOs, then your overall bonuses were similar in power to straight up SO slotting.

I should also point out that because of this, you will only be able to slot in ONE of a particular Set IO into a particular power. So in the Sting of the Manticore example, you can't slot in 6 SotM: Damage/Accuracy IOs into your Sniper power.

Later ...

You will be able to mix and match different sets into a single power.

So you could have 1 enhancement from 6 different sets in one 6 slotted power, or 2 enh from 3 sets, or 5 from one set and 1 from another... or whatever combo you can think of.

The rule is simply you can't have more than one of a particular Enhancement in a power. Of course multiple Enh from the same set start to unlock the Set Bonus abilities, making them more attractive.

Okay, that's becoming complicated. Though, again, this throws all the Guides out the window, it seems ...

Are there different sets for the same thing?

Sure, there are 5 different Sniper sets: Exploit Weakness, Calibrated Accuacy, Executioner's Contract, Extreme Measures, and Sting of the Manticore. All of them exist all the way to level 53, but some "start" later than others. The earliest starts at level 10 (slottable at level 7). Sting of the Manticore starts at level 35 (so slottable at level 32).

Are there sets with less than 6 slots?

Yes. In the above sets, Exploit Weakness is a 4 Enhancement set.

Are sets level-specific?

Enhancements have a level. This (minus 3) is the minimum level you can slot it at. Since Sting of the Manticore starts at level 35, you can start slotting the set at level 32... that is if you actually have a level 35 Enhancement, not a 36 or higher one.

And recipes (other than the "Table 28") are use-once (after which they're consumed).

More info as it's unveiled by the Devs ...

Posted by Dave at 8:37 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Resources & Rules

Positron on I9

Big interview at MMORPG.com:

Well, first off we have the Invention system, which adds a whole new dynamic to the game. Heroes and Villains will collect salvage and recipes by defeating enemies. In keeping with City of Heroes “casual friendly” game design, the collecting of these items adds extra spice to the gameplay of defeating foes, rather than becoming a hardcore task of “grinding,” “camping” or hours of “raiding.” With this salvage, players can use the recipes to assemble an all new class of Power Enhancements or costume pieces (depending on the recipe), which they can then use. Unused recipes and salvage can be sold at the new Consignment Houses (for Heroes) or the new Black Market (for Villains).

Next we have a revamp to the Hamidon encounter. For those not familiar with the Hamidon, it currently is one of the big “raid” encounters in the game, requiring a large group of heroes to overcome. We’ve changed the way Hamidon plays to improve the experience and also made an attempt to make the encounter better for smaller groups of characters. In addition, the Villains get their very own “Hamidon zone” in the Abyss.

Finally we have Statesman’s Task Force, which allows Heroes to take the fight to Arachnos. This is on par with the Lord Recluse Strike Force and has the same reward pool to choose from at the end.

I'm still witholding judgment on the Invention system, but certainly the philosophical approach sounds good.

Glad to hear Hammy's being tweaked. Might actually even be fun.

And -- yeah, the STF sounds fun.

Patch - 13-Feb-07

From the site ...

HEADLINES

Pocket D Jubilee! One year ago at Valentine’s Day, DJ Zero reopened Pocket D to great success! To celebrate the One Year Anniversary of Pocket D, DJ Zero presents more of the same fun from yesteryear!
Graphical effects changes to improve game performance.
Power revisions.

COMBINED NOTES

Powers

Burn: Normalized all versions of 'Burn' to now have a recharge time of 25 seconds. This is a reduction for Tankers, and an increase for Brutes and Blasters.

Performance: Made changes to the following graphics effects for performance improvements:

Psychic Shockwave
Drain Psyche
Oppressive Gloom
Death Shroud
Whirling Hands
Foot Stomp
Stalagmite
Circle of Thorn Crystals
Devouring Earth Eminators
Poison Gas Arrow

Other Power Changes:

Invincibility: Brute and Scrapper versions of Invincibility taunt effect should now work properly.
Animate Stone's attack powers now use knock down, not knock back. Really. We mean it this time!
Power Thrust: Corrected an issue with PvP Knockback suppression.
Assault Rifle Sniper Rifle animation: Fixed the 'hitch' that happened if used in conjunction with Targeting Drone.
Assault Rifle will no longer root the player while being drawn.
Assault Rifle/Sniper Rifle power animation will no longer interrupt itself, which will prevent the power from appearing to be interrupted when it's really not. This was specifically reported as happening with Targeting Drone active.
Will Domination and Dominate rooting time while flying is now the same as standing.
Drain Psyche's rooting time has been reduced and changed to work more consistently.
Added priority values to help correct Mastermind Thug pets from wearing the incorrect costumes and Kheldian from slipping back into "human" mode.

Base Salvage is now all categorized under "Base". This is done to clean up the lists for when Invention Salvage is added.

Game

The storm that had blown over Founders Falls and Croatoa has moved on and the more appropriate sky should now be seen there.
The sky in Steel Canyon has been reset to display the correct "bright" sky for the area and correct an issue that could allow players to fly outside of the zone area. Hey, it’s not safe out there, even for the super powered!
Corrected a server issue that could lead to instability.
Improved Game Stability, including correcting a possible issue with capes that could lead to a client crash. We are still evaluating this issue, so if you do experience an issue that brings up a client crash report, as always it will be helpful if you choose to submit them.

Posted by Dave at 3:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Resources & Rules

Mastermindful

We continue to plug away with The Gifted Kid and Special Educator. Dinged to 20 last night -- which was not nearly the grand hoohah that it is with every other character because, damn, really not having stamina problems.

SE is hitting the endurance the most, with her various Darkish activities. But she's been doing fine on blues. Before she started taking Leadership, though, she decided to finish up getting to Stamina, which she'll grab at 22.

TGK, on the other hand, is wildly non-Endurance-sucking -- aside from when I summon my Crewe, of course. Aside from the occasional Force Bolt, and (as of 18) Assault, not much going on with the Endurance for him. Bubbling is intermittent, and I spend most of my time directing the 'bots as to their next attack.

That might change Real Soon Now -- just picked up at 20 Dispersion Bubble, so that's a second sucking toggle. I'm on track to take Health at 22 and Stamina at 24, which will be perfect timing for the Assault Bot at 26. And if I find myself seriously sucking wind between now and then, I can use one of my Vet respecs and swap out the thus-far-unused Recall Friend for Health and get Stamina next power level.

Playwise, things continue to roll right along with them. We've yet to encounter anything we can't handle -- we're bumped up one to Malicious, so the mobs are numerous but never over orange. We might try another tick, just to see how badly it hurts. We can be overwhelmed by numbers -- it's happened with some ill-timed patrols -- but concentrated fire tends to make short work of pretty much anyone, and Margie is quite talented with all the debuffy bits.

Posted by Dave at 9:41 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Character Design

February 12, 2007

The Plot-Driven Door

Shamus (of DM of the Rings fame) talks about "doors" (metaphorical and literal) in computer RPGs and how ludicrous they sometimes are.

Most videogames in the RPG genre have plot-driven doors. You know, a locked door which may be made of wood and 100 years old, but which is indestructable, un-pickable, and un-openable until some plotpoint takes place. [...] Some games are better about this than others, but it’s a necessity of the medium.

Players tolerate plot-doors to different degrees, mostly depending on the strength of the writing. Some games are really eager to abuse this, and use plot-doors in lieu of strong writing. Let me bring up the most foul example of a plot-driven door.

This is true in table-top games, too, at least with some GMs -- no matter how well the players can argue that something makes absolutely no sense, plot-wise, the GM will railroad the characters through the pre-planned plot. It's a challenge that every GM faces, as well -- no matter how smart you are in coming up with barriers, having 3-6 highly intelligent and motivated people across the table from you (they must be, otherwise why would you invite them?) will soon demonstrate why you are not, in fact, smarter than they are.

The good answer is to either (a) rely on a gaming system that's character-driven, that doesn't require the dungeon be stepped through in a particular sequence, but that gives the players the intrinsic power to affect the course of events and the GM the ability to keep up with them, or (b) provide really good distractions so that they're willing to go on the quest to open the door rather than simply pick the lock.

From a CoH perspective (why we're here, of course), this isn't too much of a problem -- or to the extent that it's a problem, it's just an accepted part of the Contact system. The players rely on the Contacts to feed and interpret the info gathered from either mysterious sources or each individual mission to direct them to the next spot. Rarely have I ever said, "Hey, I can figure out from this Clue what to do next -- I'm on my way to the next mish without checking in with my Contact." Instead, we are kept in the dark and just sent from place to place. Rarely is there enough obvious information to provoke the sort of counter-reaction that Shamus describes.

(And, for that matter, if you choose, you can completely bypass Contacts and just street hunt. What you can't do is actually figure out and track down the big Crey plot or Rikti invasion or Council headquarters by yourself.)

The only not-quite-metaphorical aspect of this which plagues the "suspension of disbelief" factor in CoX is that we're talking about character who can blast through vault doors, trash cars, and go toe-to-toe with giant monsters and archvillains/superheroes, right? Why, then, are we stymied by simple warehouse doors that require a key? Why do we spend so much time wandering through warehouses via the front door, rather than ripping our way in from the side? Or (to use a genre-specific meme) crashing through a skylight onto the villain, so bypassing the hordes of mooks? Heck, why do we get pushed around by civilians (though they are, of course, strong enough to keep super-villains from stealing their purses)?

Posted by Dave at 10:43 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Resources & Rules

CoV - neglected stepchild or whinging players?

I mentioned this article to a few people over the last couple of weeks, so I should probably link to it. The gist can be summed up in the following:

CoV is definitely the weaker cousin to CoH. It has some better features - the majority of missions being in the same zone as the contact who gives them is a big one - but it has a lot less content and seemingly fewer players. Sure, CoV is a newer title than CoH and it did get one issue since that was a big content update, but it still lags behind. I've noticed that the majority of dev focus seems to be on CoH [...]

Part of the problem is that CoV is tied to a storyline that makes perfect sense (well, close enough if you pay any attention to the schemes of supervillains - "find the Destined One who will eventually kill you" is par for the course) for the Rogue Isles setting where villains are based, but at the same time hamstrings much further development. There isn't a lot of leeway in the Destined One metaplot to do something different or to spin things another way while still keeping it part of the narrative. CoH doesn't suffer that fate - because its lacks one overarching story that holds everything together, new storylines can be patched in without disrupting anything. As an example, Striga Isle and Croatoa both are additions to CoH that don't require a lot of explanation. They are just there for heroes to enter and get drawn into the in-zone story arc.

Villains don't get that kind of freedom. Everything tha that happens in the Rogue Isles happens under the purview of Lord Recluse and (at least in part) according to the Destined One prophecy. While a zone could be added that provided additional insight to that prophecy, that particular storyline has a fixed beginning and end while the middle is pretty well defined. More zones could be added to the middle act of the metaplot, sure, but it would mostly likely appear shoehorned in and / or not contribute much to the overall narrative.

There's something to be said for that. Part of it is part-and-parcel trying to justify a "City of Villains" -- well, in the Rogue Isles you have have a meta-villain organization running the shots and keeping things (conspiracies notwithstanding) from completely melting down. The "Destined One" bit provides some focus and potential conflict within that structure.

In contrast, nobody needs to justify a "City of Heroes" -- you don't have to have all super-heroes working for the government more-or-less ("Civil War" notwithstanding). There's much more literary basis behind CoH; CoV had to be bound by a storyline to give an excuse for a realm of super-powered criminals and evil-doers. (In fact, that's something of a justification right there -- CoV is really a sop, and properly a second-hand one, for those folks who have to play super-villains, an unsupported aberration in the genre that the CoX franchise is dereived from.)

On the other hand, one reason why there's been so much focus on CoH in the last issue or two is ... well, it was more broken, or further behind the times. Faultline was a badly-needed boost to the 15-20 range, which was otherwise stuck in the most primitive (RP- and art-wise) zones in the game. Adding some new, broad plots (the Fifth Column, the Return of the Rikti) would help freshen up CoH material that's been around for three years, rather than a year or so for CoV. And some of the potentially most profound changes -- the whole (bleah) crafting/inventions system -- will be for both sides of the CoX house.

Whatever. I'm still having fun.

Posted by Dave at 10:03 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Resources & Rules

February 11, 2007

Speaking out of my hat on WoW

So we were down at Lee and De's today, and in the evening Doyce and Lee were (again) talking WoW, and Doyce pulled up some of his toons, and at one point Margie said, "Move over," and sat down to create a character -- a female Tauren hunter.

Now, 95% of what I know of Wow is from what I hear people say, and 5% is now from the couple of hours she and I spent taking turns running the Tauren through the first few levels. So, my largely uninformed thoughts:

WoW has beautiful graphics. Okay, so we were looking at Lee's $300 graphics card, but, still, the richness of detail and texture were much nicer than CoX.
WoW has a highly textured and rich backstory and setting.
WoW is full of so many twiddly bits -- things to keep track of, inventory, supplies, crap like that -- that it would drive me absolutely buggy trying to play it full time.

Really. I mean, yeah, there's a bit of that in CoX -- but, really, for the most part CoX is about going on missions to defeat/commit evil. The "supplies" you need to track and find room for and all that are largely abstract Enhancements and Inspirations (and, honestly, a good chunk of that I find irksome). It's mostly about the missions -- which, no matter how much one might bitch about the annoyance of pre-Travel Power jogging through Paragon City, are far more convenient and available than loping along miles across the veldt to find wild boars.

But WoW seems to be all (or at least much) about the encumbrance-and-supply-inventory mechanic -- just the sort of crap that I always hated in tabletop gaming, and which is no more entertaining here. One could, honestly, run a CoX character who never slotted anything in their powers and never popped an Inspiration. It would be annoying (and kind of unnecessary), but you could do it. So far as I can tell, you can't advance at all in WoW without keeping track of (and/or gathering and/or selling) broken claws and pig snouts. Margie's hunter ran out of ammunition. Which is accurate from a simulationist standpoint, but just freaking annoying from an heroic story standpoint.

Now, if Margie turned to me and said, "Dave, I've fallen in love with WoW and want to play it from now on," I'd smile, grit my teeth, and play WoW with her (and hope that my vague impressions of how problematic WoW is for soloing and duoing are not correct). But given my druthers, I'm still getting plenty of kicks out of CoX, and didn't see much tonight to change my mind.

Though the graphics, and the setting, are very cool.

(And with that, everyone who loves WoW is welcome to tell me I'm full of shit and convince me otherwise. :-) )

Posted by Dave at 8:45 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Gameplay

February 7, 2007

Matt Miller (Positron) answers your questions!

No, really. In summary:

Current content focus is Hero level 35-40, and Hero/Villain 40-50.
Don't expect the Patron Power setup to change.
Epic Archetypes are a lot of work; none are currently scheduled, as they keep getting bumped for higher priority things.
I9 brings new datamining tools to help the devs figure out where folks are "grinding."
More base stuff a-coming ...
Customized colors on powers would be really keen, but have determined to be impractical. Rats.
Don't expect any specfic revamping of any given ATs to make them more soloable.
Server transfer will happen. Sometime.

And then there was this interesting response on new power sets:

When it comes to Powersets, there are no shortages of great ideas. Unfortunately, like Epic Archetypes that I talked about earlier, they are not easily implemented and are always competing with other features for the next Issue. If I could wave my magic wand and instantly create 10 new powersets, these would be the ones I’d like to see: (in NO particular order):

Electric Hammer
Shield Defence
Shield Melee
Magnetism
Magnetic Blast
Force Control
Psionic Weaponry
Street Fighting
Akimbo Pistols
Demon Summoning

Obviously some powersets are more suited to some ATs than others. Demon Summoning for example, would be a Mastermind Pet set. Of course, if these make it into the game the names would probably change as well, and this entire list could change if the wind blows just right. And as a bonus I’ll pre-answer the obvious follow-up questions:

No, I don’t know when these will appear in the game.

No, they will not all appear at once in one update. When we introduce new power sets we’re more likely to do a couple at a time.

Akimbo Pistols is planned as a Corruptor set at first, and it is NOT, and never will be, a Scrapper or Stalker set.

Posted by Dave at 11:15 PM | Comments (11) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Resources & Rules

February 5, 2007

Masterminds!

Masterminds! My own experience with Masterminds has been fairly limited but not all that great -- Mr. Thorne was more of a concept character, and I ended up really disliking both Mercs and (again) Dark -- but Margie has done quite a bit of soloing with them, so we decided to give it a whirl with a duo.

Great fun.

I played The Gifted Kid (Robots/FF), the young evil genius who got bullied a lot until, well, he killed them all, bwah-ha-ha. Margie did Special Educator (Thugs/Dark), whose goal is to teach her boys some very special lessons ...

Together, they commit crime!

Managed to get both of them up to over 14 over the course of the weekend. Neither of us died once, I don't believe (though I have never gone into so many missions that had mobs posted on the door), and, in fact, we didn't really have too many troubles with anyone (which makes me think we need to bump up the difficulty).

For me, I enjoyed Force Fields because, well, at this level most of what I do is stand around, manage the targeting and position of the 'bots, and spam off Force Bolts to keep the boss on his butt. Only rarely do I get targeted, which is hard to object to, and the boys throw out plenty of firepower (when focused) to keep things moving along nicely.

Good times.

Though let me say -- Lab Coat has got to be the clippiest piece of clothing out there. Hands, butt, even chest symbol clip through it. Yeesh.

Posted by Dave at 7:23 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Character Design

February 2, 2007

Oh, look! Yet another (yawn) event!

When every month has a special event, does that mean no event is special?

In this case, hot off the heels of the Winter Event, we have ... the Valentine Event, going into Test this weekend.

Posted by Dave at 4:29 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack | Edit
Filed under: Resources & Rules

A blog for ***Dave's "City of Heroes/Villains" (and "Lord of the Rings Online") obsession hobby.