random average

No face to face gaming, due to people 'having a life'. Pff. Whatever.

Here's what's up with CoX stuff:

Pummelcite:

I've wanted the Hurl Boulder power on a tank for several months BEFORE I got the game -- it's the closest thing we'll probably ever see to a tank being able to pick up car and toss it.

Pumm got to level 30, where I'd decided he would be able to get that power...

And I didn't get it. Got Build Up instead... figure it'll pay off more in the long run.

Of note:
- 2 levels to Granite Armor.
- Ran the Hess TF.
- Pumm's the highest prestige-earner in the Storm Knights.

Bear Claws (23)
Cannot wait for the i7 reanimations on the claw attacks. I've used them on test and they're verah nice. In the 'real' game, I'm skipping one of my good attacks cuz it's so. damn. slow.

- Bear is the highest prestige earner in the Hostess Heroes, which is sort of like having the best covenience store job among all your slacker friends.

Kethos (26)

Dinged 25 and 26 and almost to 27. Got that Dark Melee version of Fulcrum Shift (I know that's not what it is, except it is)... it's very cool. Thinking that his ding to 27 and the i7 respec will coincide closely enough that I'll be able to respec, sell all his enhancements, and buy back into 30's. Pondering a rebuild that gets him stamina sooner.

Really, I need to sit down with hero planner and seriously figure out a build for him. Don't get me wrong -- I can solo on this one fine, but the end problems I have in groups are... troublesome.

Tried the villain respec with Kethos. Interesting missions -- friggin' thing looks... very hard. PuG I was in did not finish it.

Ran with alot of Robotics MM's this weekend... it's impressive when they're five or so on the team... and laggy as hell, but impressive.

Later, was on a team with three DM/* Brutes... you know what? A high concentration of ANY particular AT is pretty damned impressive.

Damosel Distress
How do you adjust your play with a Dom so you remember that you're all blaster-squishy?

Get an assault set you really really associate with blasters.

Introducing DD: Grav/Energy Assault Dominator, combining the powers of my two first toons in the game (Zee Gee and Hang Time). Energy and Grav don't interfere with one another, and both focus on single target attacks early on, which is, I think, how Dom's can hold onto whatever slim margin of survivability they have.

So far, pretty fun and playable.

Dolmen
I'd like to run the first villain Strike Force with him, but I'd like it to go well, which means someone who can inviso-port. Hmm. It's a puzzler.

All that said, likely I won't be on til next week.

Posted by Doyce at 12:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

So a few weeks ago, someone on Virtue griefed a Hamidon raid by activating the mission that queues up the Kronos Titan ambush, WHILE they were in the raid.

Hilarity ensues. I'm not a supporter of griefing, but that's INSPIRED.

Posted by Doyce at 8:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Logged into the Test Server last night for the little event thing they had going on -- half to get a look at the new zones, and half to check out how a villain character would play at level 40.

Did up Kethos, rearranging powers based on stuff I've noticed in the last few weeks of play with him -- rolled him out of the garage and ran a quick newspaper mission. Verah verah nice. Still required some endurance management stuff, even with stamina, due to the way I slotted things, but having -acc in everything and five-slotted Touch of Fear meant his health bar was a loverly shade of green.

Grandville is COOL-looking. I want someone with fly over there, so I can explore, cuz the thing goes straight. up.

Ran over to Recluse's Victory for a bit. Came across a hero-scrapper with a big sword. Made him cry like a tubby kid who dropped his ice-cream on the sidewalk, then pounded on him until he finally got himself together enough to run -- had him down to a third health in that time, and I was untouched.

Took a couple pillboxes for the baddies side -- redlined a few times, but never dropped.

Things started to tip in the favor of the Villains pretty heavily, and the Freedom Phalanx sent in reinforcements.

Positron. No one else was around -- just me and him and a pillbox he wanted control of.

I got about two hits in, screaming something like "THAT'S FOR THAT STINKING CoT MISSION IN THE FEMA BUILDING, YAH RAT BASTA--"

And then he dropped me. Hard. My dignity requires that I claim it took two shots.

DAMN... I tell you what, I am going to approach Arch-villains and/or Signature Heroes with a LOT of caution when i7 goes live.

Other than that? Lots of cool little improvements. Daddy like.

Posted by Doyce at 9:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

What? Legend of Rudalak Task Force (SS TF2)
Where? Shadow Shaaaard
When? Weekend surrounding June 10th
Why? Well, we wants it, precious, and any weekend before then isn't going to work.
How? By hook and/or crook.

Who's in(terested)?

Posted by Doyce at 9:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)

... with, not coincidentally, nothing but melee characters.

Got Kethos to 24. Got Touch of Fear. Holy Emmert, that's an awesome power. Having gotten that, I've found I can leave Keth on Relentless. I can't wait to get this on Gavin (except I'm going to do exactly that -- wait -- level 20, where I can use his second costume slot for his 'game face').

Got Dolmen to 16 and picked up Dark Armor's healing power. Great numbers, fast recycle time... and HUGE endurance cost. Damn. Got him to 17 and fiddled with slots to help that out some.

Pummelcite's so much fun to play. And roleplay. I'm doing most of both of these things solo, but ... well, there it is. Damn I wish he had a controller to play with.

Got Zero at the Bone to 8th level and picked up Cold Snap or Flash Freeze or whatever the heck the PBAoE bite-me aura is -- it auto-hits and slows everyone's move and attack rate. In fact, the damn thing cuts attack rates by HALF, unslotted. By HALF. Turn this on, and at a BARE MINIMUM, you are reducing incoming damage by HALF; it is effectively 50% damage reduction vs. melee. Oh. My. God.

Bear Claws has passed Markov Chain. That's like Keanu Reeves (or, better, Jack Black, who would play BC in a HH movie) getting the Oscar nod over Ewan Mcgregor.

I finally found a stalker build that (mostly) doesn't annoy me.

That is all.

Posted by Doyce at 4:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Interview with Positron, the new creative head for CoX.

Very very interesting stuff there.

Posted by Doyce at 11:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The thing with the Heroquest system is the Conflict Resolution vs. Task Resolution; it's all about the former and unremarkable at the latter. To put it another way, the question in an HQ game is never whether or not you pick the lock on the safe, but whether or not you get The Thing You Want. Picking the lock is only the means to the end.

The point to that statement lies in remembering that every conflict you have in the game should have a Goal stated, and once that Goal is stated, the Stakes of the Conflict are then fairly obvious. (A.A. Milne capitalization rules are now In Effect.) When I remember this, a conflict really hums in the game, when I don't, it's pretty flat. The best part about this is in determining what it is that will happen if you fail. Failing is awesome in HQ. It's fun -- at least it can be, if you as the GM don't screw up setting up the Stakes for the player's stated Goal, and in doling out Consequences.

The big hurdle to figuring out that Failure != Horrible Unfun was in my own misinterpretation of the rules -- I'd missed the little clause that said you could only change a Conflict result by one step using Hero Points, and players were (understandably) spending however many points they needed to in order to avoid any kind of failure whatsoever. Fine on the surface, but it led to a mindset of 'failure can and should be avoided at all costs.'

I corrected this mis-reading during our last game and this time, people failed here and there. They'd spend a point when they wanted to capitalize on a win or mitigate the results of a loss, but by and large we were more 'exposed' to failure... and it turned out pretty cool.

Again, when it didn't, I blame my failure to think in terms of a Good Goal, and the resulting Interesting Consequences.

Mike Holmes, for whom I have all kinds of respect as an HQ GM, wrote about this at some length recently. I'd link to it directly, but it was on a mailing list, which presents a problem. I've reproduced the key bits below. Bold-faced. underlined emphasis, [and boxed commentary] mine:

I first understood this regarding contests to get information. It's what I now refer to as the "hidden clause" idea; basically all statements of goals include clauses that aren't explicitly stated.

So, [take] this a bit further, and say that the actual negative outcome stakes for any contest should be whatever is most interesting, not neccessarily a literal negative of the stated goal. That is, the rules are pretty clear that failure means that the character doesn't get what he intended to get. What you can play around with, however, is the nature of the goal statement. [As an] example, the stated goal is to find some information, for example in a library. The obvious failure condition is to narrate, "You don't find what you're looking for." But that's potentially disasterous for the plot - it might leave the player with nowhere to go, and nothing to do with his character.

So what Bruce proposes is that the goal statement includes a hidden clause, "without pissing off the librarian." So failure can mean getting the information, but pissing off the librarian in the process, such that the character will have problems later when looking for further information.

What's going on here is that the narrator is deciding on what the most interesting stakes are for this contest. Note that he could decide that this is an automatic success deeming it "something no self-respecting hero" would fail at. Indeed, failing to find a book in a library after a dilligent search with unlimited time (especially if the character is good at this sort of thing), seems to me to fall under that category. So the narrator is simply creating some more interesting stakes after the fact. The goal statement could have been, in fact, "I want to get the information without pissing off the librarian."

Now, you might retort, you're qualifying the contest by saying that they have unlimited time. What if they don't have unlimited time? Well, then that is, in fact, a case where not meeting the goal might be interesting. That is, OK, now the demon has come to life because we didn't make our time goal in finding out how to stop it in the library, so now we have to deal with the demon. The only case where it's bad form to cause people to fail is where failure means that there's nothing interesting to do now.

[T]here is no "standard" contest anywhere in HQ. All contests presented in the text are examples. Let the circumstances of the contest decide what the stakes of the contest are, not happenstance or player action statements that are not being thought of in terms of what's at stake. Don't say, "Oh, it's an [magical gate] opening attempt, let's use the contest in the book" unless the circumstances match those for this example contest. As I've said, consider what's really at stake. The question is whether [being blocked in your tracks] is the right negative consequence for the opening contest in question.

Perhaps losing your way is a better negative consequence in a particular case. Or being cursed. Apply one that is most interesting in that it moves the action along, rather than shuts it down. Sometimes that means you get turned back - maybe people chasing you catch up to you. Sometimes it means...

Well this is the fun part of being the narrator, it's up to you what failure means. It's your job to come up with interesting and creative ideas for what failure means. You get to really hose the characters, instead of the system telling you in what way the characters are hosed (usually quite uninterestingly in other games).

Now, I sometimes get pushback on this idea, and largely it comes from a very valid fear. That is, yes, if you use your ability as narrator to come up with [altered] failure stakes of a character to let him off the hook, then, yeah, you're doing your players a disservice. I most wholeheartedly agree. Always hammer the character on failure. Go to town.

A problem in many RPGs is that [most Conflicts are "combat", and] all combat has "the ultimate price," death, as the only likely negative consequence. And so we've gotten used to that idea. But, again, the one place where the HQ rules are absolutely explicit about this is in the case of character death - it should only rarely be the chosen failure consequence (if ever, since you don't have to even state combat stakes in terms of death at all). Our experience with other games informs us that death is the "right" stake here, and HQ has to correct that impression.

To me, this screams that the narrator should be coming up with better failures than just "you don't get it." Instead, the system gives you an injury or something that becomes a complication for your character, an obstacle to be overcome. If you play this way from the start, players will begin to expect complications as the result of failure, instead of the system punishing them as players by shutting down their options. And then they'll not only expect that these are the sorts of stakes that are coming down the pike, but, better yet, they'll begin to love when their characters fail.

And this is when the HQ rules really start to humm, in my experience. If players know that, no matter what they do in contests, that the results will be fun for them as players (even if the results suck for the character), then they're informed that they can concentrate on playing their character as a hero with the motives on their character sheet, as opposed to figuring out how to have their character shy away from conflict, because they're worried that the system will punish them as players.

So many systems claim this as a feature, that system lethality makes players have their characters act "realistically" because the player fears character loss as much as the character does. Well, what really happens is that the player figures out how to make his character's motives match the player's in keeping the character alive, instead of having the only criteria for what to do being the character's personality traits, relationships, etc, the things on the character sheet that the character cares about.

Yeah, sometimes having this sort of "plot immunity" will lead to players having their characters do things that seem to be just a little unrealistic in the name of following their motives. In books and movies we call these characters heroes. In any case, the level to which a player does this is only motivated in HQ by how cool it makes the character seem. So, no, in HQ you don't see players having their characters idiotically walk off of cliffs - like you might see in D&D - to avoid a horde of trolls (since in D&D he has enough HP to survive the fall, but they don't). Instead they turn to face the trolls.

The thing I need to remember to do when running Heroquest is to put a sticky up on my laptop screen that says "What are the Goals? What are the Stakes?"

Good stuff.

Posted by Doyce at 1:35 PM | Permalink

CoH - All In-Game Emotes

Posted by Doyce at 4:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Some interesting play-time in the last week or so. Let's review:

Hang Time (50)
Respecced HT to the older 'classic' version, which is Hasten + pure blaster (no melee attacks except for the one you have to take). I didn't need the Hasten back for his round-to-round combat, but I *did* want to get back his "fastest Boom in the West" status.

The downside to his 'classic' build is that it didn't include Conserve Power -- something I've since become VERY fond of -- and, while I still have it, I didn't manage to squeeze it in until level 49, which means I didn't have access to it during the Portal Smasher Task Force that we did this last week.

That's Right! I actually got HT dusted off and run him through this damn thing for the third time, this time, actually COMPLETING it. Good solid group, and if HT faceplanted more than even I'm used to, I don't blame anyone but myself and the Rularuu cone attacks. C'est la Shard.

RP: Jason hasn't been around people for... quite a long time -- he's pretty much been hanging out by himself in the Shard since the annulment, and while this has done wonders for the manipulation (if not actual control) of his powers, he sort of forgot how to be... Jason.

The task force, in which he was surrounded by folks he's known a very very long time (Sword and Noelle, most notably), did wonders to fix that -- and while he isn't totally back to normal, he's a damn sight closer than he's been in a long time, and more importantly, he LIKES that.

((Player's Note: I'll never be a blaster; not really. At heart, I'm a melee guy, and even when I didn't know that, I still played HT that way. I *have* a blapper in Epitaph, however, so I specifically stuck with HT's 'pure blaster' build. There is a certain fun to being 'the Damage' in a group, and if nothing else, Hang Time is far-and-away the easiest character for me to roleplay, as he is the most like; broken bits and all.

Hyperthermian (50)
Hype's tanking for a group doing the fourth Shard TF, which was going swimmingly until we hit the last AV, Lanaru the Hideously Overpowered Mad. Five or Six team-wipes. We all decided to take a break and try that last fight again another day. Lanaru's a god: he can wait.

I dearly wanna do this with the Old Regulars and see what happens.

Strategist (34)
Still really pondering a history-rewrite on him -- a full-on reimaging of the character. Call it an IC-respec. In gameplay, I dialed him up to Rugged and have going through missions like a porche running 75 in a school zone. If only he had a self-heal (ponders the medicine pool).

Epitaph (34)

The reverse of Strat: I've dialed him down to heroic and still get owned by Mez-powers until I switch into White Dwarf form, which is as durable as a giant hunk of stone, and *just* as fas and engaging to play.

Pummelcite (25, 26, 27, 28 -- new)

In order to fix my respec screw-up before Knight's Night last week, I wanted to get to 26th level. Did that. Got taunt. Realized all my Enhancements were now badly weakened. Got to 27th level and upgraded all my enhancements. More to the point, I have, during this time, fallen in luuurve with playing this toon -- he kicks all kinds of ass and is just way tougher than any character with a currently-gimped powerset should be. Cannot WAIT for i7 to come out and help him out further.

I was ready for Knight's Night.

... and the lag from the i7 downloads going on was so bad I couldn't even play. Pumm got faceplanted 3 times in the first mission (I think -- it was impossible to tell with the lag).

So. Damned. Frustrating. I still get mad, thinking about it. Nothing makes me feel as squishy as using Pumm to tank for a big group of Knights. Maybe he should be my version of Margie's Blue Point. I dunno.

Markov Chain (22)
I'd very much like to run the second Strike Force with Markov (and the CoI computer can do it).

Very much.

Bear Claws (22, new)
Picked up a lil' power on him that works like a faster version of Build Up. It's kinda meh, but the extra damage on the powers I like is nice.

Really looking forward to the Claw fixes in i7.

Nice thing about playing Pumm alot is the insight it's given me into the Stone attack cycle (*)-- it's really helped me manage Dolmen's endurance usage while still kicking ass.

Gavin (14, new)
Got teleport. Am pleased. (Weirdly, In less than 10 days, I've gone from no characters with Teleport to three. Gavin got it, and Pummelcity and Epitaph (with White Dwarf) both respecced into it.)

(*) -- The Stone Melee attack chain (one recharge rate in all three Stone attacks): Brawl - Stone Fists - Brawl - Hammer - Brawl - Stone fists - Brawl - BIG HAMMER [[repeat]]

If everything hits, and you have your damage aura on, an orange-difficulty mook will drop every cycle.

Until you get into SO Enhancements, every two cycles you have to do two brawls in a row after the Big Hammer.

Yes, I've been playing Stone Melee alot :)

Posted by Doyce at 3:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I turned my Task Force List into an editable wiki page, so that folks can (if they choose) correct anything they see 'off' in the list, such as the level limits/caps or what have you.

I've also checked over my main guys on Champion and made note, for my own use, of which TFs they have and haven't finished. Very odd gaps there...

This all came about in the post-Portal Smasher TF discussion last night, in which we started out by talking about when we might want to do the second Shard TF (Rudalak the Strong), and ended by discussing TF's in general and which ones we'd like to get done.

Per the list below...

                                      HT   Hype  Epitaph  Strat  Pumm
 Burkholder's Bane                    X     X
 Positron's Ally                      X     X       X              X
 Synapse's Cohort                     X     X       X
 Sister Psyche's Comrade              X     X
 Citadel's Assistant                  X     X       X
 Manticore's Associate                X     X       X       X
 Numina's Compatriot                  X     X
 Liberator (Eden)                     X     X
 Transcendent                         X     X       X              X
 Charmer (Hydra)                      X      
 Honorary Peacebringer (Moonfire)                   X
 Portal Smasher (SS 1)                X     X
 Sara Moore's TF (SS 2)                     X
 Justin Augustine's TF (SS 3)               X
 Faathim the Kind's TF (SS 4)
 Katie Hannon (Cabalist/10x the Hero)                       X
 Stalwart Medallion (TV Trial 1)      X     X       X       X      X
 Statesman's Star (TV Trial 2)        X     X
 Freedom Cross (TV Trial 3)

... there are a few things that really jump out at me:

• It's mind-blowing to me that neither Strat or Epitaph did the Hess TF (Burkholder's Bane) when they were in range. More ironic, Pummelcite will probably be the next one who does do it.
• Strat, in general, has done almost no TFs or Trials at all, but of three on his list, he's done two of them twice.
• I have no recollection whatsoever of doing the Citadel TF with Epitaph. None.
• I've run Manticore (with its difficult starting group requirement, mediocre story (you accomplish pretty much nothing), and high levels of competing content in that level range) more than any other TF except the Sky Raider Terra Volta Trial. Hell, I went so far as to start a PuG to run it with Epitaph. That's crazy.
• I've actually run Moonfire with HT, Hype, AND Strat, but that was before they gave a badge for it, so if I want their badge, I need to do it again... three times. :( Four times, if I want Pumm to get it (and he's in the first bubble of the maximum 'xp-earning' level for it).

So... stuff I'd like to run?

Rudalak the Strong: preferably with HT, but I'll take Hype if we've not got a tank. I've heard of this going really poorly for some folks -- when I did with Hype, we rolled it.

Moonfire, Hess, and Katie Hannon: with Pummelcite, and soon.

Numina: with either Epitaph or Strat. This is probably my second favorite TF/Trial, after the Eden Trial. Lurve the Eden Trial.

Sewer Trial: Now that most everyone's 50, I'd like to take a shot at the Sewer Trial with Hype. HT did it three times, but they code-blocked the 'hold-spam win' solution we used each of those times, which means it will be HHHHHHAAAAARD: maybe impossible? Maybe not. I'd really like to find out.

Posted by Doyce at 2:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

PVP is Serious Business.

Right. Don't gank 11 year olds, apparently. Sheesh.

Also, since folks have asked, the origin(s) of 'gank'.

This is the version I'm most familiar with:

Gank is also used where someone takes out someone else in a PvP or PvE environment, due to an overwhelming advantage on the part of the winner. It is often used in any situation where the person being killed is at a significant disadvantage to the person killing.

Posted by Doyce at 10:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

... which sounds so much better than "that really long, level-limited, shadow shard TF."

Okay, come hell or high water, I'm going to get the First !$#!#*@#$^-ing Shadow Shard Task Force done (it didn't work out on the second attempt -- we dropped team in order to do the Valentine's Day Stuff).

* I tentatively have (possibly) eight people who want to do it all the way through.

* I need maybe one or two people at least level 41 to log in this THURSDAY, at 11pm EST, just to get the group to eight people so we can start it -- and then you can drop team if you want.

Anyone? Bueller?

Second Edit:
For those of you who wanted to join up and continue through to the end (Sword, Dave, Margie) -- please be advised that most of the work of the TF is going to take place on Sunday, not Thursday -- on Thursday, we're just getting it started and maybe doing a few of the prelim missions (would be nice to get through those miserable Rularuu missions, but whatever).

((Edited to change the start-up to Thursday.))

Posted by Doyce at 2:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (13)

Among other things:

* Glue Arrow now has a -Fly component. For real this time.
* Fixed an issue where Entangling arrow could be escaped, despite its -Fly component by jumping/flying out of it.
* Modified sprint fx to only play while running. Not Flying. Not swimming. Not jumping. Just running on the ground
* Fixed fx for Dark Regeneration power
* Fixed fx for Unyielding Stance power

* Fixed phone booths to prevent players from getting stuck inside

* Increased Dominator Melee damage modifier to 0.75 -- this increases their melee damage by 6.7%

Also, a rumor out there that click on a glowy destealths you -- so... you can click on the filing cabinet while invis, but searching through the thing means you can't hide. Sucks, yes, but much more realistic than what they were going to do before.

Posted by Doyce at 8:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

Respecs either happening or on my mind of late, so that's how I'm going to approach this CoH character recap. Not alot of story-tales here, so if you don't speak CoH, not alot to read.

Hang Time (50)
Going to try to get through the first Shadow Shard TF again Real Soon Now. Might need some help with that. See next post. Might respec him before then to put him back a bit more to The Original version. I dropped Hasten in a previous build and it's not... good... the way it is. At least not for me.

Hyperthermian (50)
Respecced him, keeping all the powers he had, but rearranging them a bit so that he has Stamina, Acrobatics, and his first Ice Hold by level 30, so I can screw around in Siren's Call more effectively. Didn't get a chance to DO that on Sunday, but I did get a chance to take him into the Arena on Sunday and held his own against a really good team. Happy about that.

Strategist (34)
Really pondering a history-rewrite on him -- I mean a full-on reimaging of the character. Call it an IC-respec.

Epitaph (34 -- new)
Holy hell -- I actually played him, roleplayed him, got the Boomtown Saints (further) into the Coalition, and ran a task force with him.

Respecced him to pick up White Dwarf. It's an interesting contrast to Pummelcite's respec, where I forgot to get Taunt -- Pumm is a tank who only has Punchvoke and a Damage Aura right now to manage aggro with. Conversely, John's WD form ONLY has taunt, and not the other two tank-things.

On the whole, I'd rather have a Tank with no taunt, then Taunt and nothing else. (Both is obviously preferred.)

Still, the WD form is fun -- nice fast move power -- VERY nice resistances to just about EVERYTHING, **Mez Protections** (praise Malak Ta'us), half-decent aggro management for smallish groups (both of players and bad guys), and almost enough attacks to keep me busy. It works well enough.

Now I just need a good IC 'event' to allow him to manifest it ICly. Something where he can sort of get frustrated and need to protect everyone and his partner just steps in help in a moment of wrath.

"Don't make me Crabby, Countess Crey; you wouldn't like me when I'm Crabby."

Pummelcite (25 -- new)
I screwed up his respec.

Not... horribly, but the problem is that the throw-away power he got at level 24 (to be used until I could respec) was so friggin' cool that I couldn't bear to give it up, so instead of needing to dump one power to get a movement ability, I had to dump two.

And I dumped Taunt. Yes. Beat me now.

So anyway, I'm on a push to get to 26 and get Taunt back before Knight's Night on Thursday. Which SUCKS, cuz I wanted to get the anti-psi-armor at 26.

Right now, I'm basically doing okay, because I still have a bite-me aura, and punchvoke, and I can 'port around the fight to get to guys who aren't on me, but still...

Yeah. Dumb me.

Markov Chain (22 -- new)
Had a ton of fun running Markov on Sunday -- running him in general. That said, Really really need to respec Markov at 24 to drop Siphon Strength and get Stamina earlier. I like all the powers he's got, but he needs them in a better order. Also, his damage feels a little week for a blaster -- seems like I should be one-shotting whites with his snipe by now, but it's not fully slotted, and maybe I'm just remembering the pre-ED glory days with Hangtime.

Still, I figured out how to get into Stamina with little to no pain with a respec at level 24, and I'm definitely doing that.

Bear Claws (21)
Didn't get a chance to play him much last Monday. I plan to fix that tonight.

Dolmen (15, new)
Played him Saturday morning and, despite a horrendous PuG, got to 15. Want to do the first Villain Strike Force with him veddy veddy much... once I get to 16 and his self-heal. I'm screwing him up a bit right now -- he gets more aggro than the average (and they are so VERY average in a pug) CoV healers can keep up with, so he goes down too much, so I need a self-heal, and that means I can't get Stamina at 20... or 22...

Ugh. Still. Love playing this guy.

Gavin (13, new)
Wow. Someone I don't want to respec. What a concept.

Posted by Doyce at 11:55 AM | Permalink

Was a bit caught home this weekend, and with John messing with the Boomtown Saints stuff, I spent a lot of time online.

Thursday was the first Boomtown Saints get-together (though we ended up doing a little bit more on Friday? Maybe? I don't remember.) It's challenging getting teams going right now, simply because the level disparities are... disparate. We're working on it. Also, I'm running into a problem with Epitaph's build in the post-30 game -- the mezz attacks are getting to be so numerous that I spend half of every fight wandering around like a drunk sorority girl looking for her date -- I decided to do something about that on Saturday.

Friday: I think I got Pummelcite to 25 that night. Trying to get him to 26 before the Knight's Night on Thursday in order to correct an egregious screw-up I made in his recent respecification. I know I did something else, but damned if I can remember what.

Saturday:
I know I did something online on Saturday morning, but damned if I can remember what it was. Anyway. Seems like it must have been Pummelcite. Hmm.

Saturday night, did a few missions with the Victory Scoobies. Fun stuff. Hit 13. Really want a travel power. (Which, WIERDLY, is going to be teleport, giving me THREE toons who suddenly have teleport within a week of each other -- Gavin, Pummelcite, and John (in the WD form). Wacky.

Sunday
Got a wild urge to start up a Pick-up Group run of the Manticore Task Force with Epitaph at 8am on Sunday morning, which is about six different kinds of challenging.

After about an hour of wrangling, got a team of six together. Needed seven to start, so begged Dave and Margie to help out (thanks, Velvet!) and, despite the tank's cries of 'we need a controller!', started. ((And yah gotta appreciate the controller-love, there.))

We finished with five of the six folks still going. Halfway through, the Tank had to ditch for awhile and no idea of when he'd be back, so... mid-TF, and with the Team's blessing, I ran John over to Galaxy and did a respecification on me, dropping the rarely-used Thermal Shield for the White Dwarf kheldian form. More on that in another post. Fake-tanked a couple missions with the form (about which, more later), then the tank came back and I went back to being damage and fringe-management. One of the two blasters took off somewhere in there (good riddance, actually), and the AV was no big deal.

I miss having people I play with regularly, having stealth-the-mission capabilities.

Which brings me to Markov Chain and Shadowslip, who ran the Seer Marino storyarc in the afternoon, an evening break, then graduating up to Sharkhead Isle for some broker-missions and a nigh-simultaneous level-22 ding. Good stuff. Really really like that pairing.

And crashed by 10 or something. G'night.

Posted by Doyce at 11:18 AM | Permalink

I did a book report back in high school on the Icewind Dale trilogy.

Yeah yeah, Drizz't -- sue me.

Anyway, the whole point of the paper I wrote (and by the end of the thing, it was well-and-truly a 'paper' and not a report) was the nature of race and role stereotyping and the affect that has on the individual.

My teacher gave me an A, and suggested that I was, perhaps, reading more meaning into the books than the author had really put there. I asked her how that was different than any other book that anyone had ever read, and she dropped it.

My point: Dave did something very similar here, and asks really good questions -- digging past what's right for the big Marvel story of the year (an outcry for the regulation of Superheroes) and asking the hardest question of all: what would be right in the really real world.

I have more to say, but I pretty much said it over there.

Posted by Doyce at 3:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

City Of Heroes - Issue Discussion: A really, really great summary of each of the "Issue" updates that have occured since Go-live for CoH, two years back. Really neat. Also, spooky, since I was actually AROUND for the release of all but Issue 1 and 2.

Posted by Doyce at 9:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Geek Podcasts

Durham 3: rocks.

The Sons Of Kryos: Gaming bits. I started with the 11th -cast, which was fun for the 'top five gaming moments of 2005'.

Someone tell Matt. :)

Posted by Doyce at 3:24 PM | Permalink

[DitV] Temperance and Accountability

Posted by Doyce at 12:05 PM | Permalink

Really great Heroquest Probabilities Question that then wanders off into the question of 'is it better to spend 10 Hero Points to raise a skill by ten, or keep them to give you on the boosts.

Posted by Doyce at 10:54 AM | Permalink

I keep thinking about doing a "super-family" Supergroup for CoH, along the lines of The First Family from Astro City... multiple generations... uncles, aunts... the people married to family members, the kids. All that lot.

I'd really like to do something like this, following the same basic practices that seem to be working so darn well with Hostess Heroes.

Then last night, it occured to me that it was also work to do a super-eeeeeevil-family. The two problem I see there is that, while potentially fun, it has to run a balancing act between too-dark-revenge-hate-dysfunctional-family, and the Addams Family.

I like the idea of a Fantastic Four-like shared origin, or common backgroun (all mutants), or just a generational 'grandpa did it with gizmos, and now I do it, and thanks to my exposure to the radiation of Alpha Ceti Five, you'll be doing it to, but without gizmos' -- where pretty much any sort of background can be mixed in.

I dunno. Thoughts?

Posted by Doyce at 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (20)

HUGE drop in the percentage chance that powers have to shut off toggles in PvP with I-7. Huge.

Posted by Doyce at 4:47 PM | Permalink

Notes on I7 (currently on test). Grabbed from here.

Notes below:

Known Issues

7. Although characters now keep their Origin-based attack power past level 10, characters who have already lost the power by leveling up are not being given the power back. This is a bug and will be addressed in a later patch.

Really? We get to keep the little free power? Strat with a pulling power throwing knife? Cool!

COMBINED NOTES

New PvP Zone

• Recluse’s Victory – new high level PvP zone, open to players level 40 and up.

... and I'm way more interested in this than I was two weeks ago...

New Base Items:

... basically a place to store Inspirations, Enhancements, Salvage... it's all good. I like that we can put the SG logo around the base as well.

• Arch Villains/Heroes and Giant Monsters have been significantly boosted. They should now require more people in order for them to be defeated, especially at higher levels.

Good. :)

• Elite Bosses’ hit points increased.

Good :)

• Modified PvE critter accuracy. Defense powers will now work equally well against critters, regardless if they have higher accuracy. For instance, your defense powers will work equally well against a Boss or any critter up to 5 levels higher than you, as it does for an equal level minion. Previously, a more accurate critter could circumvent much of your defense, but this will no longer happen. This change is designed to alleviate the disparity between Defense and Damage resistance powers (for instance, a player with super reflexes will now be more effective against a high level critter, boss or Arch villain). This change has no effect on a player who does not have any Defense. This change does not affect PvP.

Hell. Yes.

Hell yes.

YYYEEEEESSS.

Bubblers of CoH, rejoice. SR scrappers and Ice/ and Stone/ tankers... rejoice.

I literally cannot bear waiting for this.

• Super Reflexes Passive Defense abilities have been increased in effectiveness by 1/3rd.

... they are now worth 1 and 1/3rd percent. :P

Actually... if they were five percent, base, before... that's... what... 6.5% Whoo. :P

• Defense will now apply to all Taunt powers in Player versus Player combat (Ranged, or AoE, where appropriate). This replaces the previous 50% chance to work. Players now have more control over how their taunt affects targets.

Because Taunt wasn't useless enough. :P

• Modified Gravity Control Hold, Immobilize and Slow visual f/x so they more accurately reflect the control f/x.

That will be cool to see.

• Reduced End costs on Claws high end powers.

Sweet. I don't have them yet, but sweet.

• Confuse has had the delay after animation removed.

I'm sure someone will like that :)

• Current changes implemented to Defender, Controller and Mastermind Trick Arrow sets:

Kilcannon does the happy dance.

• The Claws Power sets for both Scrappers and Stalkers have new animations for the powers Swipe and Strike. The animation for Slash has been replaced with the old Strike animation in order to better match the cast, recharge and damage values.

Bear Claws does the *dirty* happy-place dance.

• All powers which have an Endurance Drain component will now drain a percentage of a PvE target’s Endurance, rather than a set number of Endurance Points. This fixes the issues created when enemies’ Endurance Pools were increased.

That's going to make some Kin and Electric-blast people really happy.

• Rebalanced Hurricane’s PvE repel effect. Its effectiveness should be equal to what it was before the last change.

Whee. :)

• Tanker, Scrapper and Brute Taunt powers will now accept Accuracy Enhancements. Note that these enhancements will have no effect in PvE, as the powers automatically hit PvE targets. The change is made strictly for PvP purposes.

*mutters darkly.*

• All exploration badges now give a small amount of XP when you find them (based on your level).

Okay... I would like that to be RETROACTIVE, please. Sheesh.

• Many new badges added to the game, and some new accolades.

Oooh. I want more information on these :)

• Spawns updated and adjusted in several city zones. Street encounters in lower level zones have more variety.

That sounds cool. I have bunch of lowbies out there right now, so that sounds cool.

• Tanker Inherent Gauntlet now works in PvP. Single target powers have a chance of Taunting the target hit, while Area of Effect powers have a much smaller chance of Taunting all targets in the radius.

Hell, I didn't know Guantlet didn't work in PvP... *mumbles some more*.

• For players with both City of Heroes and City of Villains access, Hero characters have access to all formerly Villain-only costume pieces.

COOOOL!

• New Villain Strike Force – The Future of Freedom

• In order to truly prove yourself the greatest of villains you must take on the greatest of heroes… Statesman! Villains who think they are up to the ultimate challenge should contact Lord Recluse directly in Grandville. Be warned – many have tried to challenge Statesman, and most failed without even getting close to him. Until now, none have succeeded. Only a group of the very strongest villains should attempt this.

Oh son of a... It's ON! I want a piece of that rat bast--ahh... HI, KIDS!

• Many new costume pieces are available.

Oh dear lord, we've lost Noelle...

New Power Sets

• Mastermind Primary – Thugs
• Brute Primary – Electric Melee
• Brute Secondary – Electric Shields
• Stalker Primary – Dark Melee
• Stalker Secondary – Dark Armor

Very curious about the elec/elec Brute. :)

Patron Powers

• High level villains may complete a series of missions to gain favor with one of the faction leaders of Arachnos, gaining access to a new power pool. A villain may only have one patron during their career, so choose carefully.

Looks very very cool, and customized both by patron and by Archetype. Neat. Also... long.

Posted by Doyce at 10:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Due to messing around with retro costumes during my free time last week (ha!), I actually had pretty much everyone logged in at some point, recently. Let's review:

Hang Time (50)

Planned on doing stuff with him yesterday. Didn't quite happen.

Hyperthermian (50)
Working through an old Carnie arc with him -- pretty much a waste of time, but at least it'll be done. Also, respecced him, keeping all the powers he had, but rearranging them a bit so that he has Stamina, Acrobatics, and his first Ice Hold by level 30, so I can screw around in Siren's Call more effectively.

Strategist (34)
Did a bunch of missions on him, solo. First time I've had him logged on in a looooong time. He's still fun to play, and MA looks fun with the flared boots on his "flash gordon approaching" outfit. That is is all.

Epitaph (33 -- new)
Holy hell -- I actually played him, roleplayed him, got the Boomtown Saints into the Coalition, and ran some missions with him (with help, cuz the Crey Protectors own him).

Fun to play. Not the uber-AT, by any means (slow animations on the attacks are annoying), but fun to play.

Pummelcite (24 -- new)
I friggin' love this guy. BIG BOOM attacks, and now with Fault from the stone attack set to keep everyone flopping around... it's just good smashing tank fun. Ran the respec trial, which was good, but while I really want to get teleport (or any move power), I just don't want to give anything UP to get it.

Kethos (23)
Ran a couple missions. Good build. Not nearly as much 'boom' as Dolmen, to compare my other brute, but he's pretty tough. Might need to dial down off the red/purple con missions.

Markov Chain (21)

Haven't played him. This makes me sad.

Gilly (20)
Silly Gilly. If she weren't my second oldest toon I'd remake her as an energy melee tank -- I'm hamstringing the build by not taking footstomp.

Also... I just don't play her that much.

Bear Claws (21)
Unlike Bear, who gets weekly lovin'. Love the build, and pretty much expecting to like it even more when I7 speeds up the animations on the attacks.

Dolmen (14)
Haven't been able to play him in a week or so. Love the toon, though. Much boom.

Gavin (12)
Like Bear, Gavin benefits from having a commited amount of playtime, due to being in a group. I like dark melee, and I like regen, so it's all good.

Aeric (8)
Every time I make up an Ice/Storm Controller, I love em. Then I don't get time to play them. :P

There are others, but that's what I'm talking about right now.

Posted by Doyce at 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)