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March 27, 2007

A bit of solo play

Haven't done nearly as much CoX whilst Margie has been away as I'd thought I would.  Still, managed to get Lady Zebra to 18 (Big Kick!) and Fr. Frank to 12 (Fortitude!).

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March 23, 2007

Redesigning Hamidon

Lengthy developer post on the design decisions behind the revamped I9 Hamidon raid.

Most of the players we talked with in game generally said the same things about Hamidon raids. We used those common gripes about Hamidon to compile a list of top issues we wanted to address.

• Hamidon raids are repetitive and tedious
• Hamidon raids are laggy and very taxing on systems (low FPS)
• Hamidon and Mitos often disappear during the end phase of a raid
• Hamidon raids are a hotspot for griefing
• Hamidon raids reward Leeching
• Certain AT/Powerset combinations were viewed as critical while others felt they had no real purpose
• Hamidon raids take too long and the reward is often viewed as not being worth the time/effort
• There's no ability to choose reward
• There's no way to recover from a mito spawn (if it happens, it’s game over!)
• Hamidon raids are only available to heroes

The basic solutions (read the article for full details):

1. Hammy can't be held to the point of powerlessness.
2. Mito spawns have been changed so that they're not the disaster they have been.
3. Villains have a special zone (the Abyss) to find Hammy in.
4. The three Mito types have been redesigned both to synergize and to have special vulnerabilities to certain ATs, so that everyone has a role to lay.
5. Have to defeat the various DE in the zone around Hammy -- but that's the only limit, so Hammy can respawn any time (freeing up schedules).
6. New "Essense of Earth" inspirations will provide some special protection.
7. Capped the number fo folks in the Hive and Abyss to 50 -- which will help with lag and which will spawn extra instances as need be.
8. HO reward table at the end -- it's not just a random pick.  Plus a rare Recipe.  Only one of each can be gotten in a 24 hour period.

Sounds possibly interesting enough to try out ...

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March 21, 2007

Knives of Artemis

Without a doubt, one of the most annoying villain types in CoX (high perception + caltrops = fun!), the Knives now have their own Villain Profile on the CoH site. And it has an upsetting number of Void/Quantum photos ...

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March 19, 2007

Meaningless, yet annoying

Both Honor the Flag and Lady Zebra, solo toons, are in SGs. No great devotion to said SGs, just invites that were responded to, Prestige earned, and ranks granted.

It's been a couple of weeks since I was on with either of them, so I took advantage of an opportunity this afternoon and did so.

Honor had been kicked.

It was ... very strange. It's not like I was bound body and soul to the SG. My time with them was sort of peripheral -- earning Prestige, getting a promotion, chatting with a few members and a few CC members. I'm not 100% certain I even recall the SG name. Yet, I felt strangely bereft in finding myself kicked. No message in Mail. No warning. Just ... pffft.

In retrospect, I realize that the SG itself may have gone bottoms up -- its activity level was not all that great. But, still, it was a very odd sensation, like, for some unknown reason, someone had drawn a big line through my name, and I was Out.

Signed onto Lady Zebra and was (a) happy to find I was still in my SG, and (b) quick to run out, kick some bad guys, level, and get into a PUG.

Odd.

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Music of Heroes

A while back, I stumbled up a site that had a bunch of MP3s for CoH music. Downloaded them, then lost it, and always wondered where I could find the CoV music to go with it.

Then ran across this CoH LJ post, and discovered that the MP3s for both sides of CoX are up at the FTP site. Sweet!

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March 15, 2007

Henge vs Henge

Wrapped up the second Croatoa arc last night (dinging Rita to 31 in doing so) with the "free the enchanters, protect the henge" mish. While similar in structure to the "stop the Fir Bolg from escaping" trial mish in the first arc, it has some substantial differences that make it ... well ... actually enjoyable.

1. The bad guys are not monomaniacally sprinting for the henge. They will, in fact, engage you in combat if you hit them, or come within their aggro range. Granted, Red Caps are a bit more clever than Pumpkin Heads, but, really, the way the FB trot past at high speed unless you actually manage to hit each and every one with something (and, even then, they're only temporarily distracted) is one of the most maddening things about the first henge mish.
2. There's a mission timer. Once the last enchanter is in place, a 15 minute clock pops up. While that's quite a while to stand there and deal with wave after wave, it avoids the other most maddening aspect of the first henge mission, wondering how much longer / how many more waves there are to go.

There are other things about the first henge mish that are difficult -- the haziness of the atmosphere making it difficult to see the FB under the trees; the long pauses between waves -- but those are just challenging, not "Can we just let the next wave through and be done with it?" frustrating. If the above two items were incorporated into the FB mish, it would be ever so much more enjoyable.

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March 14, 2007

This means, like, these are serious characters, right?

Rita and Runt have both graduated to 31, meaning they're off in Brickstown, fergoshsakes, doing missions.

Not too shabby for whim characters ...

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FX Suppression

Interesting post by poz in response to complaints that the "Suppress Extra Player FX" is currently broken:

The intention of "Suppress Extra Player FX" was to reduce the number of "unimportant" FX displayed. This was targeting city zones, mainly near trainers.

With the Suppress FX options turned on, here are the heuristics used to determine if a continuing FX will be shown.
1. If it's not a continuing FX then show it.
2. If it's on you show it.
3. If it's on a critter show it.
4. If it's from a villain and you're a hero (or vice versa) show it.
5. If it's from you or to you, show it. (So you see all bubbles you cast.)
6. If the target or source is on you team show it.

[...] We decided that anything that happened to a teammate or that you triggered was important. This feature was never meant to help on mission maps; it was meant to help spammed group heals at Ms. Liberty and sundry running around town.

Which makes sense, though it may still mean (on some highly-buffy teams or vs. certain opponents) that things get kind of super-saturated.

Poz thinks the thought it's broken is due to a year-old fix that got rid of teammate's buff visuals being suppressed if they were debuffed by opponents. But I thought it was an interesting list.

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March 10, 2007

Bad news for fliers

Everyone thought the prospect of individual flight animations was the bee's knees (or wings). It was tested for a bit, and everyone bitched about not being able to choose an alternative -- at which point it was pulled ...

... and may not be back. Castle quotes the Animators:

HereÂ’s the deal. Originally we wanted to put alternate flight poses in purely as additional flavor. Nothing more really than the alternate idle cycles that are already in game, like crossing your arms, putting your hands on your hips, etc. This is why there were random to begin with. When we put them up on the training room, it became clear very quickly that you guys saw them as more than just random variations. For a lot of you, these poses defined your character’s attitude and style in a way that was outside of your control. In reaction to that we tried to make them selectable in the only method that we had, which was to make them sequential rather than random. We weren’t really happy with that solution, and a lot of you guys weren’t either. So we took a step back and re-examined it from a broader perspective.

Here was the opportunity to give another layer of character customization to everyone. Rather than implement the quick and easy solution, we wanted to hold off on it until we could implement the right solution. It wasn’t because of people whining about them on the forums, those people had legitimate concerns. There were issues that we couldn’t resolve in time before Issue 8 was going live. Instead of holding back Issue 8 to resolve them or just leaving them in the state they were in and impacting a good number of players in a very negative way, we pulled them out of Issue 8. We haven’t completely shelved the idea of a custom animation system, but in lieu of the Inventions system, Task Forces, and other things that we’ve been working on for Issue 9 and Issue 10, a custom animation system has a much smaller impact on the game as a whole. Because of this, it’s gotten pushed back in the list of priorities. I can’t say when we’ll do it at this point. I can’t even say that it’s something even possible or feasible to do at this point. I can pretty comfortably say that there are things coming in Issue 9, 10, and beyond that are much more exciting and will impact everyone who plays the game.

Or maybe they will ...

However, there is some good news here. We didn’t think it would be possible to create these alternate flight animations as an emote. Emote animations have to be limited in what they can interrupt as well as be interruptible by core animations, such as movement or attack powers. I had a flash of insight the other day about this though, and I believe I have figured out a way to set these up so they can be triggered via an emote but still function in the way they need to. I’ve tested this internally and it seems to work fine, but I can’t test all of the permutations. We’re treading into somewhat risky waters by allowing an animation to trump a core movement animation. The way this will work is if you turn on flight and start flying forward (using autorun works best in this case), you can enter the emote name and your character will transition in the alternate fly forward animation. I think this resolves all of the issues we had with it originally. It won’t interrupt hover, what you see on your system is what everyone will see on their system, and it’s completely optional and selectable by the player. You will be able to use the one you like or not use it at all.

We won’t be re-adding the banking animations which were basically an attempt to do a flying strafe. We also won’t be introducing the no-strafe movement on player characters. This is only the alternate fly forward animations.

Which would still be cool ...

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Hack and Smash

Rita and Runt continue rolling through the opposition (with a couple of caveats). We finished up 28 and most of 29 -- picked up the Wolf Whistle, and concluded the whole first half of the Croatoa arc.

Including, of course, the dreaded "Stop the 30 Fir Bolg from Trotting Past You at High, Nearly-Unaggroable Speed to Get At the Door, Which Looks More Like Stonehenge" mish. Not the easiest of things to do with a pair of scrappers. We did last a while, though, taking them as they came, usually with at least one or two slpping through each wave.

I do so wish there was some sort of "progress bar" or timer on the mission. When that 30th pumpkin flees, it's almost a blessing.

We each had the mission, but for some reason I didn't get credit for it. So instead, I "Cancelled for Credit," which netted me the same XP as about 7 waves and no SO drops, but took a lot less time and a lot less aggravation.

After that, we wrapped up the rest of the sub-30 content in Croatoa. The final "Stop the Eternal Battle" mish got a bit bloody -- one death for me, about three for Margie, mostly alpha strike issues, which are the greatest vulnerabilities for regen scrappers. The Mooses are fairly flimsy, but in aggregate they hit pretty hard ...

UPDATE: I note with amazement that R&R have become our third fourth highest pair (after PC/A, Hildy/Torchy, and Velvet/P-siren). Wow.

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March 9, 2007

Statesman Speaks!

Jack Emmert fields questions from the studio audience. Not a lot of them, mind you, but a good number. A few highlights:

1. The Invention system is Really Keen, especially the non-aging enhancements.
2. Biggest regret in CoX is how Hamidon turned out -- the "new" Hamidon encounter should fix some of that.
3. After the major mechanic introduction in I9, I10 is going to be a significant story-based release.

Plus some interesting insights into the original "prestige class" ideas for post-50 heroes. Power suits?

Cool stuff.

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March 8, 2007

Scrapping our way through Paragon

Rita and Runt continue to forge their way toward 28 -- in Margie's words, "I can't believe we're almost ready for Bricks and Founders." Did one of the two Talos "Stop the IP Bank Robbery" mishes and got the requisite gobs of XP ... wrapped things up after clearing the map, making sure it was clear, and still having 9 minutes on the clock.

(A nice Quality of LIfe feature would be an"Okay, you've finished the mission and cleared the map, down to the last little cowardly minion, so no more XP are left to grab -- exit the damn mish already!" flag.)

Current task is finishing our Striga material sufficient to get Wolf Whistles -- it always being nice to be able to summon a few extra <s>targets</s> friends during tough battles.

Doing the regen scrapper pair is, if I may sound fanboyish, freaking awesome. We just do a crapload of damage (the best defense being a good offense), our health bars tend to go up during battle as often as down, and besides the healing powers I almost always have half a tray of greens to chew on. It is, in fact, possible for us to go down, but usually we were just running from encounter to encounter, mowing down oranges, pausing to polish off the red lieut, then onward. Easy-peasy.

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March 6, 2007

More inventiony goodness

Big MMORPG.com interview with Positron.

From the outset of creating the Invention System we wanted to make sure that players desired these new, craftable items. If they didn't actually make your character better then the players wouldn't be motivated to use the system. We tried to think of new, exciting things that Enhancements could bring to the game. We determined that adding mini-powers to your existing ones had a lot of potential, as the sky would nearly be the limit on what we could accomplish with these new Enhancements. In addition we wanted Enhancements that never expired, because nothing was worse than leveling up in a mission to a point where the majority of your Enhancements turned red (useless), and instead of that level-up making you more powerful, it actually made you less.

Interestingly, they are going to a closed Beta test of the system prior to opening it to everyone on the Test server, including NDAs and the whole ball of wax.

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