Because I need *this* shit today...
RandomWiki has been vandalized.
If you grok wiki at all and understand the 'restore' function, I'd ask your assistance in fixing things.
Dave, you might want to check HikiWiki.
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RandomWiki has been vandalized.
If you grok wiki at all and understand the 'restore' function, I'd ask your assistance in fixing things.
Dave, you might want to check HikiWiki.
As noted, here, since the last update to the Wiki records on the 19th, Hype's dinged 33, 34, and 35. In the process, Hype and Syn ran the Manticore Task Force on Friday with Psi-Clone (***Dave), Amorpha (Margie), Puck Bunny (Stan), and three other people I'll categorize as "a mistake to include," to greater or lesser degrees.
Saturday was just random missions and a really nice team-up at the end of the night.
3 levels in 7 days sounds pretty impressive, until I mention that Shock dinged 47 and 48 in that period of time, so go her.
I think Jackie and I are both trying to get our mains (and I use that term in air-quotes in my case) to 50 before d-day. Jackie might: she's got 18 bubbles to go. I probably won't, with 24 left and Jury Duty looming tomorrow.
Very frustrating day on Sunday, with lots of debt and lots bleah, playing HT. Whatever. I've run into another 40-45 level contact that still wants to give me missions, which is frustrating as hell since I can't get the missions I want at MY level and I'm stuck in a bunch of time-wasting things with nothing but blue and white cons (assuming I crank the difficulty up, which then makes the ambushes deadly). Anyway.
In the process of (a) doing ALMOST all of the Shadow Shard Task Force (b) working through the end of HT's level 40-45 contacts with both Alliance and pick-up teams which (c) led to a truckload of Arch-Villain battles, HT dinged 46 last week and 47 last night. (I've been playing HT a lot, cuz I kinda want to ding 50 before the bebe comes so I can combine my tank/scrapper/blaster love into one handy Kheldian.
47 is a HUGE level, as it is bestows the second-to the-last power HT will ever get (more in a sec), and the ability to slot level 50 enhancements... in other words, the last shopping trip he will ever have to make.
Also, thought I would mention the power I picked up -- the pinnacle of the Energy Mastery Epic Power Pool -- Force of Nature.
What's it do? Well, have you ever fought Paragon Protectors? Heh. HT picked up a few things while working with them in the last couple levels, I guess.
You're nigh-Unhittable. If you GET hit, you take almost no damage (1's and 2's). You hit HARDER, and your endurance is essentially under the effect of Recovery Aura. I mean, you can open with Nova, and just keep fighting like nothing happened.
Three minutes. For three minutes, you're an unstoppable godling -- then your Endurance Bar crashes and you have to bang on those blue tabs and heals and shields like crazy, or hope that the fight's over.
The power takes about ten minutes to come back.
But yeah... to Dave's comment recently... Hang Time finally is an unstopable Force of Nature. Even got the power to prove it. They should call the thing "God Mode."
----
In other news, Strat's 29. I'm not in a big hurry to level him, though, as he and his partner will be the designated explorers of Croatoa when it comes out, so there's REALLY no rush there.
Hype and Syn dinged 32 since the last time I posted. Syn did a major respec and dropped a few powers -- swapped Boxing in for Kick so she'd stop knocking guys off my burn patch, dropped Siphon Power for the End-sapping, End-gifting Transferral, and picked up the Penultimate kinetics power, Fulcrum Shift -- which, combined with the pack of guys clustered around Hype at all times... is just sick.
Hype picked up Tough and with a slot or two he'll have Smashing and Lethal capped even without Syn around. Cool. I think I know all the powers he'll get from now to fifty. Looking very cool.
I love playing those two -- they're Unstoppable... +6 bosses... no problem. Piece of cake. Seriously.
Carnie Illusionists... maybe the only thing in the game that might give them pause. Maybe.
Un. Stoppable.
Now testing in the Training Room - Issue #5!
Issue 5: Forest of Dread
New Zone: Croatoa
Croatoa is a 3 hour train ride up state from Paragon City, and was the favorite lakeside vacation spot for city dwellers. For the past 3 years, the train service has been closed due to the Rikti Invasion, but recent happenings have gotten the government to open it back up.
To get to Croatoa, heroes can take the Green Line.
Locals are asking for heroes of security levels 25 to 34 to investigate recent strange goings on.
New Powers
- Sonic Blast (Blaster Primary and Defender Secondary)
- Sonic Debuff (Defender Primary and Controller Secondary)
- Archery (Blaster Primary and Defender Secondary)
- Trick Arrow (Defender Primary and Controller Secondary)
- Electric Mastery (Blaster Ancillary Power Set)
Mission Customization
- Many existing missions have been updated with hostage escorts, friendly heroes who fight by your side, villain wave attacks and more.
Updated Zone: The Shadow Shard
- Shadow Shard Maps show the location of each Jump Pad. A dotted line connects the Jump Pad with its end point.
- A teleporter on Firebase Zulu takes players to any of the other three zones in the Shadow Shard (works both ways).
- Dr. Scott Wachhorst, a prominent xenobiologist and Portal Corp. leader, willingly purchases Enhancements from players in Firebase Zulu.
- A renegade Brute, Kallarn, purchases Enhancements with the hope that he might gain enough power to overthrow Ruladak. It can be found in the Cascades.
- Slarrah, a Wisp who has been converted by Faathim the Kind relieves players of excess Enhancements in the Chantry.
- Nameless Mystic. An interdimensional mystic feeds off the energy kicked off by the dreaded Lanaru. He happily accepts Enhancements. Found lurking near the Storm Palace.
Updated Zone: Rikti Crash Site
- The military controls a teleporter in Peregrine Island that connects to one in the entrance of the Rikti Crash Site. Heroes can go back and forth from this point.
- Col. Barry Woodhouse works for Military Intelligence, gathering info on the Rikti activities. Players can sell excess Enhancements to him.
Updated Zone: Outbreak
- The tutorial has been modified.
New Badges
- In addition to new badges associated with Croatoa, many new Achievement badges have been added for those who have exceeded the existing ones.
Experience System Changes
- No experience debt until level 10.
- Half experience debt in missions.
- Experience awards for defeating enemies level 25+ increased.
New Zone Events
- Steel Canyon: The Hellions are living up to their name and have taken to arson.
- Skyway City: The Trolls start a Rave (Troll-style) when they find a new supply of Superadine.
Powers - General
- Blasters have a new Inherent ability called Defiance. As a Blaster reaches the end of his health, he starts to dramatically increase his damage.
- Makes the Blaster into a more comic-booky Archetype to play. As he begins to lose a battle, his power increases dramatically, giving him the edge he needs to defeat powerful foes.
- Blaster hit points increased.
- Overall increase in the survivability of Blasters.
- Blaster damage cap increased.
- Overall increase in the damage output (and thus survivability) of Blasters. Blasters may need Buffs from other Archetypes in order to reach the new caps.
- Scrapper damage increased for all powers.
- Our goal is to increase the overall 'Scrappery' nature of Scrappers, making them melee combat masters, but not having Tanker-level defense. This change counters some of the general reduction in defense that Scrappers are seeing with this patch.
- Controllers will do double damage to a target (non pvp) that is Immobilized, Disoriented, Slept or Held.
- Increasing the non-Pet damage potential of all Controllers. This change is intended to give them a more balanced and even game-play experience throughout all of their levels.
- Controller AoE Holds, Disorients and Sleeps (and a few others like Quicksand and Ice Slick) recharge times have been doubled and duration cut in half. AoE Immobilize and Phase Shift powers were not affected. Volcanic Gasses duration was not affected.
- Game balance change due to the new increased damage of Controllers.
- Controller Pets (and Defender/Dark Miasma/Dark Servant) can no longer stack. That is, casting these summon powers before your pet has expired will remove the old pets and spawn new ones.
- Illusion Control/Phantasm can still summon multiple decoys.
- Fire Control/Fire Imps now always summons 3 Imps at your level.
- Illusion Control/Phantom Army now always summons 3 Decoys.
- Pet powers were never intended to have multiple instances out at once. Due to the change in the power, we removed the randomness in the number of pets you get with Fire Imps and Phantom Army.
- Set a maximum number of targets that can be affected by most offensive powers:
AoE Debuffs, Ranged cones, and Melee AoE (PBAoE) are set to 10.
Some Large PBAoE (like Nova) are set to 16.
Melee Cones are set to 5.
Ranged AoE damage powers are set to 16.
Taunts (including Tanker inherent Taunt - 'PunchVoke') is set to 5.
Buffs are unaffected.
This will limit the amount of 'herding' done by players to a more reasonable and realistic level.
- Slightly reduced the non-enhanceable health regeneration buff of Regeneration/Integration.
- The health regeneration component was slightly too high when combined with the other effects of the power.
Changed Regeneration/Instant Healing from a Toggle Power to a Click power. Gave it a new animation so it activates faster.
With almost unlimited Health Regeneration, this power was always intended to be used sparingly. The high Endurance cost was intended to accomplish this, but in the end, only lead to frustrations of running out of Endurance. As a click with a long recharge, its Endurance cost can remain low, and its Regeneration boost can stay high.
- Fixed Ice Armor/Energy Absorption so it no longer grants less Endurance and Slow protection if used against a higher level foe.
This is a bug fix. When used against a higher level foe, your buff was lower than normal. Your Endurance Buff and Slow protection will now always be the same, regardless of what foe you use this power on.
- Increased Super Reflexes/Evasion Defense buff.
This will help Super Reflexes Scrappers against foes that tend to use AoE powers, like Bosses (who typically have a higher accuracy than minions).
Reduced Dark Armor/Cloak of Fear’s Accuracy Debuff.
- With the previous changes to Fear effects, Cloak of Fear's Accuracy Debuff was too powerful.
- Increased the recharge time and decreased the duration of Pool/Presence/Intimidate. It only affects Lieutenants on a Critical.
Originally, the recharge and duration of this power were balanced against the old Fear effect (run away). Fear is now more of a control power and much more effective (targets are essentially Held). As such the old recharge time and duration were too powerful.
- Reduced Duration on Dark Miasma/Fearsome Stare. Increased its recharge time.
Originally, the recharge and duration of this power were balanced against the old Fear effect (run away). Fear is now more of a control power and much more effective (targets are essentially Held). As such the old recharge time and duration were too powerful.
- Reduced Duration on Dark Miasma/Petrifying Gaze and increased its recharge time. (Dark Servant version as well.)
This power was stronger than most Controller Hold powers, and thus too powerful for a Defender power.
- Added an f/x to Regeneration/Moment of Glory when it expires to indicate your Regeneration is debuffed (this is a visual f/x change only).
Quality of Life feature.
- Added an f/x to Elude when it expires to indicate your Recovery is debuffed (this is a visual f/x change only).
Quality of Life feature.
- Fixed missing sticky f/x for Radiation Blast/Cosmic Burst Defense Debuff (visual f/x only, no power change).
Quality of Life feature.
- Controller/Gravity Control/Lift now does extra damage in PvP.
Bug Fix.
- Fixed Ice Blast/Frost Breath damage in PvP (it was set too low).
Bug Fix.
- Removed Debuff Defense Enhancements from Spines/Impale (this powers does not debuff Defense, so Debuff Defense Enhancements were not doing anything).
Bug Fix.
- Removed Range Enhancements from Spines/Spine Burst (this powers is a PBAoE and has no 'range' to increase, so Range Enhancements were not doing anything).
Bug Fix.
- Fixed Warshade Stygian Circle so it no longer gives you less Endurance when you drain and enemy that is higher level than you. Also, it no longer accepts Accuracy Enhancements (they were unnecessary because Stygian Circle is an auto-hit power).
Bug Fix.
- Marked Quicksand summonable to not show duplicate icon in the buff tray.
Bug Fix.
- Fixed excessive long immobilization effect when casting or getting hit by Transfusion, Transference, Twilight Grasp, and Howling Twilight.
Bug fix.
- Updated Energy Blast/Power Burst help (text only, no power changes).
More accurately describes the power.
- Some Combat system chat message fixes for Spines powers (text only, no power changes).
More accurately describes what’s going on.
Powers - Global Defense Decrease
- In order to facilitate a more balanced game for the higher level characters (Level 25 and up), the defensive abilities of several powersets has been adjusted so that they are more in line with one another. Lieutenant, Boss, and Elite Boss villains have had their To Hit values reduced accordingly to work with these defensive changes.
- Reduced all Archetypes’ base ability with Damage Resistance and Defense powers.
- Reduced Defense rating of Force Field powers (Deflection Shield, Insulation Shield and Dispersion Bubble).
- Reduced Defense bonus from Pool/Concealment/Stealth. Defense bonus suppresses if you attack.
- Reduced Defense bonus from Pool/Flight/Hover (and Kheldian Combat Flight).
- Reduced Damage Resistance bonus from Pool/Fighting/Tough. Increased its Endurance Cost.
- Reduced Defense bonus from Pool/Fighting/Weave. Increased its Endurance Cost.
- Reduced Defense bonus from Pool/Leadership/Maneuvers.
- Reduced Defense bonus from Pool/Leaping/Combat Jumping.
- Increased the Recharge Time and Decreased the duration of Pool/Presence/Invoke Panic.
- Pool/Speed/Hasten no longer buffs Defense.
- Reduced Ice Armor/Frozen Armor Defense Bonus.
- Reduced Ice Armor/Wet Ice Defense Bonus.
- Reduced Ice Armor/Glacial Armor Defense Bonus.
- Reduced Ice Armor/Energy Absorption Defense Bonus and set its max number of affected targets to 14. Added an Endurance Buff to the Caster for each affected target.
- Reduced Invulnerability/Temporary Invulnerability Damage resistance bonus.
- Reduced Invulnerability/Resist Physical Damage resistance bonus.
- Reduced Invulnerability/Resist Elements Damage resistance bonus. Added resistance to Toxic.
- Reduced Invulnerability/Resist Energies Damage resistance bonus.
- Reduced Invulnerability/Unyielding Damage resistance bonus. Increased its Defense debuff.
- Reduced Invulnerability/Invincibility Defense and Accuracy bonus. Increased its max number of affected targets to 14.
- Reduced Invulnerability/Tough Hide Defense bonus.
- Reduced Stone Armor/Rock Armor Defense Bonus.
- Reduced Stone Armor/Brimstone Armor Damage Resistance.
- Reduced Stone Armor/Crystal Armor Defense Bonus.
- Reduced Stone Armor/Mineral Armor Defense Bonus.
- Reduced Dark Armor/Cloak of Darkness Defense bonus.
- Reduced Super Reflexes/Focused Fighting Defense buff.
- Reduced Super Reflexes/Focused Senses Defense buff.
- Reduced Dark Miasma/Shadow Fall defense bonus.
- Reduced Storm Summoning/Steamy Mist Defense Bonus.
- Set some of Illusion Control/Superior Invisibility Defense bonus to suppress if you attack. Reduced its overall Defense bonus.
- Reduced defense bonus of Illusion Control/Group Invisibility.
- Increased Ancillary Pool/Force Mastery/Force of Nature recharge time.
- Reduced Ancillary Pool/Psionic Mastery/Mind Over Body damage resistance.
- Reduced Ancillary Pool/Electric Mastery/Charged Armor damage resistance.
- Reduced Ancillary Pool/Munitions Mastery/Body Armor damage resistance.
- Reduced Umbral Aura/Absorption damage resistance.
- Reduced Umbral Aura/Shadow Cloak Defense bonus.
- Reduced Luminous Aura/Incandescence damage resistance.
- Reduced Defense and Damage Resistance values of defensive Temporary Powers appropriately based on above changes.
Powers - Villains
- Reduced Lt. Accuracy (ToHit).
This is to limit the severity of defensive adjustments made to some powersets.
- Reduced Boss Accuracy (ToHit).
This is to limit the severity of defensive adjustments made to some powersets.
- Reduced Elite Boss Accuracy (ToHit).
This is to limit the severity of defensive adjustments made to some powersets
- There is a new low level Circle of Thorns minion, The Guardian.
- Power sets for CoT minions slightly redesigned.
- Higher level Circle of Thorns Minions should no longer repeatedly cast the same debuffs over and over, nor should they stack them on top of already existing Debuffs of that type.
Bug Fix.
- Some higher level Circle of Thorns minions are exhibiting new powers.
Power sets for CoT minions slightly redesigned.
UI
- Contact names now appear a different color from other NPC names.
- There is now a new option to disable dragging powers around in the power tray.
- New slash commands:
/reply - replies to the last person who sent you a /tell.
/tell_last or /tl - sends a tell to the last player you sent a /tell to.
- Improved text editing on Character ID screen.
- Options menu rearranged slightly for ease of use.
A few weeks month or so ago, on the CoH forums that I frequent, I wrote:
So here's what I'm thinking:1. Shadow Shard Task Force (level 40-44 -- the really long, 24-mission one)
2. Playing: Weeknights on nights when people can make it.
3. Running: Whatever length of time people can manage, then stop for the night and switch to whatever else you want to do til we can go again (RP, play an alt. whatever.)
4. Repeat until done.This is a TF run for those weeknight warriors that can't commit their whole Saturday and Sunday for one never ending event, and who tend to have an easier time playing on weeknights.
Note: This wasn't a TF for *me*: *I* can play TF's on the weekends, and commit a day to it. With a TF like this (24 missions, 9+ hours to play) that's exactly what I *would* have done.
So why didn't I?
Cuz I thought it would be cool to play a story arc with some people who are (a) cool (b) not around all the time when I am.
It took some time to get started, but finally:
Wed Jul 06, 2005 4:58 pmThe Task Force got rolling last night.
We've been playing a couple hours every night on this -- usually going later than we intended (and utterly nuking my attempts at a midnight bedtime). It's a pain... it's a hassle, and you can't DO ANYTHING ELSE WITH THAT CHARACTER while it's going on -- no other heroics... nothing.
But... finally...
Wed Jul 13, 2005 8:52 amFinal mission is (hopefully, please oh please) tonight (Wednesday). As soon as we have everyone (eight), we'll go, and hopefully be started and done at a reasonable time.
Final location is scenic Brickstown.
Except... early this morning, the devs implemented a patch to how Task Forces work, so that as long as you're at LEAST the minimum level to be in a Task Force, you will be automatically "Exemplared" down to the maximum allowable level for the thing if you're already "too high". It's a great thing that lots of folks, including me, have been looking forward to.
Except... what happens if you're IN an ONGOING task force when the patch goes in?
Why... obviously... everyone in the eight person team... who have completed 23 of the 24 missions in the story arc... will be "Exemplared" down to level 1.
A team of 8 characters in their mid-40's... forced down to level 1 functionality.
And the tech support guys? They're asking us what CPU speed our machines are running at.
It's clear (to me) that the conclusion is going to be "you just need to quit the task force and start over", and... no.
Bummed. Beyond. My. Ability. To. Bitch.
No FtF game Friday night -- we did a little work on the 'play on the weeknights until it gets done', TWENTY-FOUR MISSION, Shadow Shard Task Force that HT and Scorp are in. I think we're about 15 missions in... so maybe we'll wrap up this week... I hope. Seems like 2.2 missions a night isn't impossible.
Saturday, game-wise, was a fiasco -- didn't get a blessed thing done, really... though there was a pretty darn good RP thing.
Sunday, got some quality time in with Strategist and ... his partner, who shall remain nameless. That... was really cool. Followed that up with Hype and Syn finishing up THREE 25-30 story arcs (Ubelmann, Freaklympics, and General Z), dinging 31, picking the four contacts we're going to actually use from 31 to 35 (two each, since we pair up all the time it's all we can get done in four levels and still cover all the factions), getting missions from them and the level 30 Mutant SO Contact (who is SO CUTE!)...
... and wrapping up by getting Syn the Nemesis Staff. :) Fun night.
Since this is (a) something that is terribly useful when roleplaying in a 'systemless' environment, (b) something that's caused a lot of stress in the Alliance RP group on Champions of late and (c) a really nice collection of definitions, I present: Roleplaying Conflict: Definitions of God-moding.
No game on Friday, which ... well, there wasn't one scheduled -- I just thought there was. Syn and Hype worked through some of their story arcs and, in the process, dinged 29 (meaning Hype passed Strategist as my second-highest-level character), got the Celebrity badge, got the Tank Buster badge, and picked up all the explorer badges in Terra Volta.
Saturday, ran through the Hess and Citadel task forces with Hyperthermian and Synoptic. The Hess one I'd never done before, so that was very cool -- like all the Striga content, it's a step above the older material in the game... very much recommended.
((The coolest (okay, hottest) part, for me, was the big fight at the end, where Hype ended up fighting the master villain while standing in a pool of lava -- ultimately, it's what saved the day, because he was taking SO MUCH damage from the lava, and I (fire tanker) was taking essentially none -- it kept us in the fight and pulled a victory out of what was very nearly a TPK.))
Bastion/Citadel I'd done before as HT with a pickup group, and it was much as I remembered it -- lots of council on a lot of council maps that you've already need a LOT, and not a lot of stuff to otherwise recommend it.
In the process of all this, Hype and Syn dinged 30, so after the 10 to 12 hours of task forces, we went and did the level 30 Costume Mission as well as the mission that lets you add auras to the costumes, then fscked around in Icon for an hour or more. At least.
Sunday, no gaming at all (for me, at least), until quite late in the evening, most of which revolved around HT's current Crey plot and getting ready for the massive Task Force we're undertaking with a pack of the 40-somethings.
Monday was a mish-mash of stuff -- more HT-plotty stuff, some time with Hype and Syn, trying to clean up some storyarcs before dinging 31.
Looking back, the stretch of levels from 25 to 30 has just flown by -- we've been focusing on making sure that Hype and Syn do ALL the task forces during the levels in which they are offered, without having to exemp back down. That is PARTICULARLY hard in this level range, because you want to run 'regular' missions as well (in fact, you have to in order to get the Hess TF), and there are FOUR task forces that can be run from level 24 to 32 (Respec, Moonfire, Hess, and Citadel). That requires planning and a REAL LOVE of beating the hell out of the Council, because of those four, three of them are PURE Council.
We did it mostly by making sure that we only took missions from two of our contacts, each -- Syn took over the Striga story arc contact once we both had Steph's Ring done, I had the Mutie-contact, and then we each took one for 'fun' -- she took Marvin Weintraub so we could keep pounding on the Freakshow, and I took the Family/Sky Raiders contact located conveniently near my other main contact -- that seems to work, and it looks like we'll finish up those four contacts with no problem before leveling up to 31. (And in the process, we've picked up two Storyarcs (Ubelmann and the Freaklympics) that I've never done and have always been interested in. Bonus.
HT's my highest level character. He's still my main, but I LOVE playing Hype. He's the character I really feel like I've done up *right*.