Vote for the Character Contest Finalists

Lots of voting going on right about now, and City of Heroes is no different. Vote for your favorite character in the character contest. Winner gets an awesome rig.

I have some characters that are real contenders for something like this, but I'm not especially competitive and I really didn't like the idea of submitting a character I'm really fond of only to have the judges and CoX public at large reject it. Hmmm. Maybe I am competitive after all. I never do costume contests in game either.

I voted Swiftwing. Great costume, and she's Martial Arts (probably SR but I'm not sure). She'd make a good sidekick for Daemodand. ;)

American Shaman is vaguely unsettling. There's something a bit creepy about draping a native American in the symbols of their conqueror that just seems wrong.

The Mac of MMOs Meets...The Mac!

City of Heroes is known in the player base as "the Mac of MMOs" due to its elegant design reminding people of the quality of Apple products (OMG I sound like an Apple ad lol).

Well, the Mac of MMOs is coming to the Mac of computers! For those keeping score at home, the Mac of computers is the Mac. ;)

If you like reading press releases, here's another for you to read.

This is fantastic news! I welcome our new Apple overlords.

And uh, I use a PC. :p

P.S. A Valkyrie costume set is included with the Mac edition of the game, and will be available for purchase in early 2009 for those not using Macs. I really don't like the trend of locking up costume pieces like this, but I don't begrudge new Mac players some perks.

New City of Heroes Articles

TenTonHammer.com discusses making the new Cimerora missions with Senior Game Designer Bruce Harlick.

GameZone.com has an Issue 13 Q&A with Matt Miller.

Funny thing about Day Jobs, I remember some time ago the idea of rested XP was suggested on the forums and the devs said at that time that they categorically did not want to reward people for not playing the game. I wish I could find that post, but it's probably long since eaten by the forum monster. Imagine my surprise when Day Jobs included both mission complete XP bonuses and On Patrol XP (ie, rested XP). A pleasant surprise, though!

When asked about his favorite Archetype, Matt mentions his Dominator first. I always did like Positron. ;) Doms are probably my overall favorite too, they just need a bit of work to make them more playable in the 40+ game. Having your primary arbitrarily shut down just isn't fun.

Issue 13 Starts Pre-Downloading!

The updater for the live version of City of Heroes is now pre-downloading the preliminary Issue 13 patch after you end a play session. Closed beta is still ongoing so it seems a bit early. Will open beta be truncated or skipped? This Issue has taken plenty of time to complete, but probably not. NC likes polish in their products, and CoX is one of the most polished MMOs around.

Still, Issue 13 is nigh. Pretty exciting! My prediction: it goes to live December 2nd.

NC Advertises (for once), People Buy the Game

From Lighthouse on the official forums:

We're seeing a significant upswing in trial usage and corresponding conversion from trial to full accounts, from the web advertisement campaign that is underway.

Viva la N00bs!

Miracle of miracles, eh? You advertise a product, and people buy that product. Well no duh NC! Hint: Advertise more! Or at all!

Zombie XP Isn't Undead...It's Dead

So Zombies in the Zombie Apocalypse are worth only 25% of what a normal mob of the same con is worth. That is really cruddy. A white con Zombie is worth the same as a green con minion. And they're harder to kill than a green con minion, too. That's awful.

So some say that the fact you kill them on Zombie teams really fast generates nice XP. I say take that team and go beat up on some green cons...the XP is the same. In fact, it's better since the green cons die quicker. Sorry, but even on a team, the Zombies are giving pitiful XP. That same team can go do a mission and generate far more XP and get a mission complete bonus to boot.

I've also heard that "It can't always be about XP. The event is fun so the XP doesn't matter!" Rewards are good. Fun is better. Fun plus rewards is best! Just because it's fun doesn't mean it shouldn't give XP.

A third argument I've heard is that the event gives no debt, therefore gives no XP. You know what? Leave debt on and give us normal XP. There's no reason not to and the Zombies will seem even more dangerous. And what is debt these days anyway? A pale shadow of its former self. It barely exists.

I love the red sky (it looks better on redside due to no war walls), I love the music that plays when an Apocalypse starts, I love the way the Zombies look and sound. I love that they can give you a tough fight. But they give you no XP, aside from token XP. There's no good reason why they shouldn't.

CoX Website Revamped

Today the official site is undergoing big changes with a redesign. Dare I even dream City Vault is among the newness? No. I dare not, because it won't. I still find myself hoping it will though lol. Hope springs eternal. ;)

Today's DING!s

The Crimson Chameleon, level 24 MA/NIN Stalker

She's back from a month hiatus, and just as fun as ever. The Staminaless build is working out quite nicely at this point. I respecced out of Thunder Kick and into Crippling Axe Kick. I checked the numbers and they have the same Damage Per Activation, but CAK has better burst damage and better (and more reliable) secondary effects. As a result, she's killing things much more quickly and saving a bit more Endurance because of that.

Easily my next 50 Stalker, she's a lot of fun.

The Star-Spangled Basher, level 29 SS/WP Brute

I want to get him up to 30 and try him out in PvP a bit. I'm loving Super Strength as usual. It's just such a solid set. I'm thinking of respeccing to rearrange Hand Clap and Swift though. Swift is the only power from Fitness I'm taking. Why take one and not the others? In for a penny, in for a pound? Because even though I'm taking Swift, I'm skipping the others to save two powers. And a power saved is a power earned. ;)

Hollerin' Harry, level 14 Sonic/Sonic Corruptor

I beat an Elite Boss Facemaker with good ol' Harry! I'm really liking the solo build Sonic sets. Thank goodness Issue 13 will allow me to have a teaming build, too.

Occaisional Random MMO: Galaxies and TOR

The Escapist has published an article stating that Galaxies is not shutting down with the launch of Star Wars: The Old Republic. The question is, of course, can Sony keep Galaxies running if most of the remaining players leave for TOR? If The Matrix Online is any indication, the answer is "yes". Apparently, an MMO doesn't need very many players at all to be profitable enough to keep around. The Sony Station Pass is probably the prime motivator of that, since additional MMOs, no matter how sparsely populated, is value added for Pass holders.

So Galaxies will persist, but the real question is will you be able to find anyone to play with even on the now-most-populous servers? The game is a virtual ghost town compared to when I played it back in pre-NGE. And it's very concerning that these devs seem to think the NGE was a good thing:

"We also realized what players expect from an online Star Wars game - they expect to be that iconic Star Wars hero as soon as possible. They don't want to play for hundreds of hours just to become a Jedi."

*SIGH!* At least they say they've learned listening to the customer is a good thing to do. NCNC and Cryptic could have told them that.

Read the whole, worrisome thing over at The Escapist.

Today's DING!s

Mega Maggie, level 14 Stone/Inv Brute

She's lots of fun, but I'm crying for Stamina at this point.

Today's DING!s

Miss Air Force, level 12 Energy/Energy Blaster

Having a lot of fun with her. I hope she doesn't peter out like every other Blaster I've ever rolled in the mid-20's (yes, Brain Caster is stalled at, IIRC, level 24). I don't know what it is about Blasters that has me having so much fun in the sub-20 game that then goes away in the 20+ game. It's a complete mystery to me.

Hero Con Mission Architect News

Quilcene, reporting from Hero Con has this report on Mission Architect from the MA panel that was held:

Mission Architect (MA) will be accessible as a building in several zones. When you go in it will look arcade like. You will set up your mission at a terminal and enter the missions through a door inside the MA building. Think of the missions as occurring on a holodeck.

Not liking this. I was imagining the system would be accessed through contacts in the game world, but they're going with a "Holodeck". Well, I can live with it I guess, but thumbs down.

All published missions will be accessible cross faction and cross shard. This means heroes can rob a bank and Villains can save little old ladies.

This sounds like "forced" co-op. I hope it is revealed that you can tag missions for either faction or for co-op instead. Until then, thumbs down.

Customize enemies, rescuees, allies and contacts in what they are calling the Critter Creator. The primary for created enemies must be an attack set (no helpless enemies).

Outstanding! A feature worth waiting for if ever there was one. Thumbs up!

The MA is fully searchable for content you want to find.

I guess it would have to be to be any good lol. Thumbs up.

Enough positive feedback gets you story promoted to Hall of Fame which frees up that slot for you to add another story. Select stories will be flagged as Dev Choice, but nothing will become cannon at this time.

The canon thing is understandable. But if you look at the most Digged stories for the last year on digg.com, what does that say about the editorial abilities of a mob? Nothing good, that's for certain. Still, such a feature is a necessity. Let's hope it works out. Thumbs sideways.

MA story arcs will be treated similar to Oroborous TFs in that normal contacts cannot be reached, but you will be able to invite new team members mid story.

Locking out Contacts. Weird. And kinda pointless. Probably a limitation of the tech. Thumbs down.

Innappropriate content can be flagged by the community for review. If inappropriate, story will be removed. If same account keeps creating banned content, account could be banned from MA. If somebody continual griefs an MA writer with false inappropriate flags, that account could be banned from MA as well. So it works both ways.

This sounds good. People can't grief you with flags. They can grief you with poor ratings, though. "Oh, you thumbs-downed my mission? I'll do the same to yours! On all my accounts!" But such a system is necessary, worts and all. Thumbs up.

MA stories will get normal XP for defeats, but no mission complete XP. Nothing in MA will count towards badges. Inspirations will drop as normal, but instead of enhancements, recipes, or salvage, you will receive “skeeball tickets” (pohsyb’s term) that can be redeemed in a similar manner to the new Merit system.

If anyting kills Mission Architect, it'll be lack of rewards relative to the "real" game. You can pretty much count PuGs out right from the start. The real challenge is making it rewarding enough to make people want to participate, yet not so much that it obsoletes the rest of the game, or is expoitable. That's a very fine line, and right now I fear they are being too conservative with it. It all hinges on what "skeeball tickets" can get you. Since so much is unknown, thumbs sideways.

The rating system is a simple thumbs up or thumbs down.

Gee, I wonder how I got the idea for doing that in this article? ;) Thumbs up, I like a binary system far more than the typical 5 star system (wich rarely works well--look at YouTube).

MA stories are co-op style (implying that MA will be accessible in a co-op zone or two).

Forced co-op. City of Metas/City of Neutrals is encroaching more and more into this game. It's a negative trend, and extremely bad for the game. Co-op allowed? Fine. Co-op "forced"? Thumbs down!

The level system (sk, exemp, etc.) is more complex, and I didn’t fully follow it, so someone else can fill in this info.

Uh, oh. Let's hope it isn't unnecessarily complicated. Thumbs sideways because we just don't know enough about this element yet.

No manual spawn placement (No AV at the door), but it is something they may add someday.

You know, I really don't mind this at all. You just know that some yahoo would put spawns in very hard-to-locate places. X-Com Syndrome is bad, OK? Thumbs up.

1000s of predefined maps to choose from. Not customizable, but if it’s in the game, you can use it.

Customizable would be better, but with thousands available, who needs to customize? And like the spawn placement thing it keeps it to the KISS principle. Thumbs up.

You can save your story to your local computer before publishing it (can save as many as you like). You can play these is a testing environment and even invite people to test it with you; but it is not accessible to others until you publish it. The character that publishes it is the one that gets credit for it (towards badges for example).

So you can make unlimited stories just for yourself. That's hot. Thumbs up!

All in game characters are useable, or you can design your own for placement in the mission. You can even place multiples of the same character. For example, Hero 1 had the Clockwork King as an ally to help him defeat the Clockwork King.

Awesome. It's a critical feature if you ask me. Definitely worth waiting for. Thumbs up!

Character allies act as non-teammates for the purposes of XP… i.e. the damage they do is deducted from your XP. They can kill steal.

I can see the design reson behind this, but aren't we being punished enough already with the reduced rewards? For making one of the coolest features in MA a liability: Thumbs down!

You can set the temperament of the characters you rescue… for instance you can have to rescue someone who hates you who will fight you all the way to the exit.

You know what's more frustrating than a regular kidnap mission? A kidnap mission where you have to fight the kidnap all the way back to the mission door. An interesting feature, but boy will it easily frustrate players! Be very careful with it, my fellow Mission Architects! Until I have proof this feature is fun: thumbs down.

Totals:
Thumbs Down: 6
Thumbs Up: 8
Thumbs Sideways: 3

Looks like a winner, but with some signigicant concerns. Final judgement for after it releases and I get some time with it, of course. I can tell you right now they are probably going to have to make playing these missions more rewarding, though. #1 mistake they are making with it, easily. Depending upon just what skeeball tickets get you (those had better be good!)

Read the original post at the official forums.

[Once again the quote feature goes screwy on me. *sigh* Maybe I'll use HTML or something to quote in the future, cause Blogger's quote feature ain't cutting it.- ed.]

Today's DING!s

For every Hero who falls, another always rises to take their place! And today we have debuting on Today's DING!s:

Miss Air Force, level 10 Energy/Energy Blaster

An homage to Lady Blackhawk, she's been transported from World War II to today through an Ouroboros portal. The last surviving member of the legendary Golden Eagles Squadron, will she have what it takes to be my first Blaster 50? Time will tell! But there's Zombies about, so it isn't looking good!

Zombie Apocalypse Claims First Victim!

Today Alien Lad (Spines/Willpower Scrapper) became the first member of my lineup to become a victim of the Zombie Apocalypse. A zombie vomited on his Medicom teleporter device, preventing him from being safely teleported to the hospital when he received severe injuries, which then ended his life. Brains were had.

RIP Alien Lad! Who will be next to fall in the Zombie Apocalypse?

Today's DING!s

Mega Maggie, level 11 Stone/Invulnerability Brute

Debuting today we have Mega Maggie. She's an homage character loosely inspired by Supergirl, Galatea, Ms. Marvel and Mary Marvel. However, her powers are more of an absorbing type than straight up super strength, specifically of minerals (stone and metals). This absorption is quite limited (various minerals and metals but nothing else) but very long lasting (she need not be in contact with the material constantly to reabsorb it. Once absorbed, she retains a "memory" of it and can utilize it at will).

She's a very strong contenter for my first Brute 50. And according to the official forums, in Issue 13 Invulnerability (already a very solid set) is getting some buffs. I'm liking The Star-Spangled Basher (SS/WP Brute), but I think my heart belongs to Invulnerability. It's just so iconic. And Stone is just an amazing melee set.

We'll see!

City of Heroes Among Seven Best, Yahoo Says

It's a little long in the tooth, but if you'd rather create your own superhero than play as an already-established character, this massively-multiplayer online game is the one for you. Once you've picked your outrageous costume, your superpowers, and a suitably impressive moniker, you're let loose in an online world filled with opportunities for crime-stopping...or crime-starting, if you're playing as a nefarious villain. Either way, you're bound to have a super time.

Read the full article at Yahoo.

"...a little long in the tooth..." it may be, but it's also better than ever! But hey, it's nice to have the game make the list.

Halloween Event Is On!

It's time to fight some zombies, as the Halloween Event has been given an early start as a "thank-you" to the players.

Announcement at the official forums.

Paragonwiki article on the 2008 Halloween Event.

More Issue 13 Goodies

The Pain/Shield video is now up at the official site, as are some great screenshots.

To top it all off, we have a brand new interview from Castle at Massively.com. [And yes, rednames are now going to be red. I like red. ;)] Not much to say about the interview, it's pretty straight forward. I agree with Castle that Soul Storm is perhaps the coolest looking power in the game, but Pain Domination, judging from the video and screenshots above, is giving it a run for its evil money.

City of Heroes Podcast Threatens Hiatus, Rambles for 3 Hours

In the latest episode of City of Heroes Podcast (a monstrous 3+ hours long manifesto) Viv and Chooch say there may be a hiatus coming up as Viv looks for employment. I wish her good luck, and suggest she check out the voice over industry. Her voice would be great for voice over work.

And look at that running time. 3+ hours. Not even Yivvits and Mr. Bubble have an episode that long. It's likely the last we'll hear of C&V for a while though, so consider it your City of Heroes Podcast reserve.

Check Out A Cool I13 Powers Video!

It isn't a Dark_Respite video :( but it's very cool nonetheless! And I love the word "nonetheless". Look how cool it looks. ;)

Check it out at the den of MMO sin, otherwise known as MMORPG.com.

Today's DING!s

Hollerin' Harry, level 12 Sonic/Sonic Corruptor

6 hours to level 11, +1 more hour (7 total) to level 12. It didn't feel like it was that slow. I guess he's so entertaining, I don't mind. On my level 15 Wolf Spider it feels like it takes forever just to get through a mission, but he also made level 11 in 6 hours. Hmm.

My Brutes and Scrappers usually get to level 11 in 2 or 3 hours. ;) They'll spoil ya!

I uh, turned down the volume of the game thanks to Harry. lol

PvE Rewards in PvP: A Step In The Right Direction

According to Castle in the discussion thread for PvP changes in I13, Shivans and Nukes will be obtainable with Merits.

This is a big step in the right direction as it gives carebears motivation to stay out of PvP zones if they don't want to PvP. Few things are more frustrating in zone PvP than encountering what you think is a legitimate target, but to be greeted with the "I'm just Badging" or "I'm shust Shiving" line. That's a fun killer. Now, less of a reason for that to happen.

Castle Talks I13 PvP Power Changes

The long awaited post on PvP has been made by Castle on the official forums. The highlights:

Diminishing returns:
The first buff of a particular attribute is full strength, but each additional buff to that attribute is reduced in effect, and buffs in addition to that are reduced further still. The example given is Aim+Buildup currently grants 67% ToHit, and under the diminishing returns system it will grant 49%.

I don't know that this goes far enough for addressing the prevalence of ToHit in PvP. Defense sets practically have to live inside their tier-9 if they are to survive in the current PvP environment. In comics, you always see the reflexer giving the super strengther a hard time, not the other way around. In CoX PvP, Super Strength trumps Super Reflexes completely, and that's just plain wrong.

Melee attack range increased:
Melee range is increased to 7 feet. This effects PvE as well (probably not a bad thing there).

I would have looked at making it 8-10 feet for PvP, because I find that's the minimum range a melee attack can have before you start running into serious problems reaching your target. Notice how easily Bane Spiders' Shatter and Brute and Tanker Knock Out Blow are executed in PvP compared to 5 foot range attacks (they are easier than the 5 footers by an order of magnitude).

Travel Suppression:
Activating a ranged damage power activates a 3*damage scale second travel suppression. So if a power has a damage scale of 1.0, it activates a 3 second travel suppression. 2.0 is 6 seconds and so on. Melee attacks have a 2* suppression, and ranged control powers are 3.5*. Interestingly, being attacked gives a 2 second suppression.

The attacked-suppression could be a bit frustrating when you're trying to get out of a bad situation, but I can see the reasoning behind it. Right now it's just too easy to avoid combat all together, and this can make getting a kill in very difficult. Heals and buffs cause suppression too, and that's good to see, since it can be very difficult getting those support classes as they hop around at will. This also gives melees a bit more of a chance to get to a ranged attacker, since ranged attackers have about 50% more suppression.

Control Duration:
Control duration is now basically 4 seconds. 8 seconds in Domination. Resistance instead of protection means you'll more easily get someone held, but for a far shorter time (for example a Tanker will be held for 3.48 seconds if a control lasts 8 seconds). Holds do far more damage now, however.

This could make taking a Tanker out more problematic. Right now you can get that Granite Tank held with just a bit of patience and have enough time during that hold to kill him. Under the new system? Not so easy. This has me wondering about the value of my Doms in PvP under this system. I'll try it out first and before crying DOOM! though. Odds are I'll like it once I get used to it.

Heal Resistance:
When someone gets a heal from any source, a 15 second heal suppression goes into effect during which an additional heal is reduced in effectiveness by 25% (and more heals are further reduced still).

I like it. I immediately wonder what affect if any this will have on Regeneration, the premeire PvP melee armor set.

Power Damage:
Longer activation time powers do more damage. Long recharge powers get a smaller bonus to damage.

I really like this. Right now, you're punished for using any long animating attack. Under this new system, you'll be rewarded for it. The new system is much more fair and makes much more sense in this way. It enables you to bring a much wider selection of powersets into PvP, too, and I love that! This is perhaps my favorite change of the lot.

Resistance:
Each Archetype gets a bonus resist buff in PvP, equalizing the survivability of the various classes. All armors now protect against all damage types.

I don't know about this one. A Blaster is as survivable as a Tank is as survivable as a Dominator etc? Well, I suppose some of the damage advantage of Blasters has been taken away (since all Archetypes do generally the same damage now), so some survivability in return would only be fair. I'll have to see how this one goes in open beta before deciding if I like it or not. It somehow seems necessary to the new system, though. *shoulder shrug*

Taunt:
Taunt has a -75% range effect now. Tankers get a full AOE Taunt, while Scrappers and Brutes get a single target. All have the -range. Each attack has a guaranteed minimum range beyond wich it cannot be dubuffed.

I like this one a lot! It was first dicussed on the forums very recently, so I thought it was going to be a while before we saw it implemented. I guess Castle really likes it because he apparently put it on the fast track. This goes a long, long way to giving melees a chance in PvP.

That's a lot of changes coming to PvP! I sure hope they take a long, hard look at Defense vs. ToHit in PvP though, because the stacking limitation isn't enough to solve the problem (Super Strength's Rage alone cuts right past Super Refelxes Defense, and that's just not fair or comic-bookie). Here's hoping that gets fixed, too!

Check it out at the official forums.

There has been much crying in the Arena PvP forums over these changes. Very many threats of leaving. You know, I'm a bit disappointed. Aren't these the people that, when people complain about the current broken system say, "cri moar, l2p"? Heed your own advice, guys! The current system is broken and you know it. Things must change in PvP. Learn, adapt, grow. You just might find, in the long run, that you find you like the new system once you acclimate to it.

Today's DING!s

Hollerin' Harry, level 11 Sonic/Sonic Corruptor

That's right! I rolled yet another Sonic Corruptor. Yes, the others ended in deletion in the mid-20s, but I'm taking a very different tact with Harry. I'm giving him a solo build, where he takes powers that are personally useful first and foremost. Then, if there's room, get the buffs in there too somewhere. When Issue 13 releases I will give him a solo and grouped build (assuming he survives that long, but so far so good).

Plus, I really like the character. He's Silver Age all the way, in both costume and bio. I didn't want to stop playing him for the day, he's so much fun.

We'll see if he stays that way.

Huntsman Tourney Hits 50!

That's right, Huntsman Tourney my Bane Spider has hit level 50! Tourney is my fourth 50. The journey was very enjoyable. Those who listen to the naysayers on the forums and avoid Banes or roll Banes only as Huntsmen are really missing out on something special.

In PvE they have incredible damage output, especially single target, but the Placate->Crowd Control combo produces impressive AOE damage. Doubly so when combined with Venom Grenade.

I went with 3 ranged attacks(Venom Grenade, Mace Beam, Poisonous Ray) and 3 melee (Crowd Control, Pulverize, Shatter). This gives me a lot of versatility, and makes me a threat at range and up close. A lot of people pick Bash over Mace Beam, but let me tell you Mace Beam is worthy of consideration in every build as it's a great performer. Personally, having tried both, I'd never go back to Bash.

In PvP a Bane can kill squishies with the best of them and can harass, and with some work even kill Scrappers and Tankers. Tankers are usually much more work than they are worth, but it's doable with patience. The Bane is the ultimate anti-armor unit in PvP as they can get no less than four sources of -Res: Venom Grenade, Surveillance, Surveillance -Res Proc and Poisonous Ray -Res Proc. If you get lucky and both your Procs go off, your Resist based target is in big trouble!

My only complaint? Poisonous Ray has no -Res like the Patron version of the power gets. Given the relative squishiness of Banes (I love Banes, but they are undeniably the squishiest of the VEATs) I'd say putting a -20% Res in Poisonous Ray isn't overpowered, but rather fair compensation for their squishiness. This would give a PvP Bane no less than five sources of -Res, too. That would be just devastating even to a Tank. It's still balanced due to Banes' squishiness, though! (It'd be nice to see Bane Crowd Control go to 10 targets instead of the current 5, too.)

About that squishiness. The pets go a long way to mitigating the squishiness. Also, you can use active defense techniques to help keep yourself alive even against a very strong opponent. I used Web Cocoon on Statesman to allow me to kite him and wear him down with my ranged attacks, for example. A lot of people don't get this about Banes, and it's part of the unfair rap they get on the forums.

I will eventually roll another Bane. I'm very curious about doing a ranged Bane so I might go that way.

It was a weird, wild ride. Banes kill very fast, and their leveling speed is reminiscent of Brutes because of that. I highly recommend them, and not those poor-man's-crab Huntsmen either but real mace-weilding Banes.

On to purples!

Today's DING!s

The Star-Spangled Basher, level 28 SS/WP Brute

I ran up against one of Willpower's limitations today. During the Shaper Cult story arch, there's a mission where you face the stone wielding members of the Legacy Chain. My previous experience with these guys was on my Bane and on my old Invulnerability Brute. Both handed the Chain their rear ends. But not this time!

The thing is, the stone wielding members of the Legacy Chain like to stay at range rather than melee you. Willpower depends upon mobs getting into melee for much of its mitigation, and these guys were just not cooperating, so I faceplanted on them, twice, munching Inspirations all the way. They even successfully Immobilized me! That's something that's never happened to me on a Brute before.

In melee, Willpower is golden. If your opponents largely stay at range, you're in real trouble. The good news is that rarely happens in PvE. The Chain is an exception. Barracuda, Metal Shift, and Calystix all fell to Basher, but this one Legacy Chain Boss and his minions handed me my butt.

Sometimes, Invulnerability really does look like a champ (and it is!)

Today's DING!s

The Star-Spangled Basher, level 27 SS/WP Brute

Today's DING!s

The Star-Spangled Basher, level 26 SS/WP Brute

Hurl! w00t!

Issue 13 Day Jobs Explained

An article has been published at the official website detailing just how the Day Jobs system works, and what the benefits are.

It works by you logging out in a specific location for 10 days at a time. You can tell what badge you will get by an indicator under your Health/Endurance display. Getting your initial badge gives rewards such as mission complete XP/Inf' bonuses, large Inspirations, salvage, etc. You also unlock costume pieces appropriate to your character's Day Job. Correction: Day Jobs and costume pieces are actually not linked. From Positron:

Day job badges are NOT linked to costumes.

The day job related costumes are free, unlocked at the start, content in Issue 13.

Many people came to the same erroneous conclusion that I did, that the costume pieces were unlocked with day jobs. Apparently, they are available to all as of I13 and there is no such link. You know what they say about assumptions! ;)

I now return you to your regularly scheduled post:

Once you get your initial job, you can combine it with a second job (gained the same way you got your first) to get a third badge title and a fun Accolade power (such as ally rez, web grenades and a Baton power).

But here's the kicker: you earn 1 bar of double XP for every 24 hours a character is logged out, up to a maximum of 10 bars of double XP! This is the "On Patrol" reward (everyone gets On Patrol no matter where they log out in addition to the other rewards). It's an altaholic soloer's dream! :)

There's some controversy over Day Jobs not being appropriate for some characters depending upon concept, but the system is easily ignored (no one is going to make you wear the badge title) in such cases.

Also, this really encourages spreading play out over many alts (this is especially true of the double XP), and it lets you flesh out the identities of your characters with in-game mechanics.

The initail bonuses are nice, the Accolades are great, the costume pieces are fantastic and the double XP is just...incredible! Looks like a solid, fun addition to the game!

Check it out at the official website.

Weapons Mastery Loses Web Grenade

According to Castle, in clarifying his w00t interview comments on Weapons Mastery changes:

2) I misspoke re: Weapon Mastery getting Focused Accuracy. It's Targeting Drone. Functionally, it's *identical* to FA, it just has the visuals and display name of TD.

3) Web Grenade is the power that is being replaced in Weapon Mastery.

Part of the reason I took Weapons Mastery is that Web Grenade is so good in PvP. A Scrapper's #1 problem in PvP is simply catching the opponent, and without Web Grenade it's going to be a whole lot harder. They're shoehorning in Focused Accuracy by giving it the Targeting Drone animation. Well, at least that makes it a bit more entertaining, though probably thematically inappropriate for Daemodand, my MA/SR/WN Scrapper.

I'll give it a shot and see how I like it. Not happy about this change as of right now, though. If I wanted Focused Accuracy, I'd have taken the Body Mastery Pool. I'll bet the same is true of other Weapons Mastery fans.

P.S. The quote feature on blogger is very difficult to work with. :/

Issue 13 Closed Beta Underway

Lighthouse informed the official forums today that Issue 13 Closed Beta is underway as of the afternoon of October 8.

No invite for me, but then if I was offered an invite I'd probably tell them to offer it to someone with better debugging skills than me. I feel it's very important during a closed Beta to have only your very best bug hunters doing their thing so as many bugs as possible can be identified and quashed. Open Beta is completely different, as that is more marketing than serious bug hunting.

Here's hoping the Issue is bug-free enough to get to open beta in less than a month.

Listen To Castle On w00t's Podcast

Visit the very ugly w00t website to listen to the podcast, and hear what Castle has to say about the powers changes coming in Issue 13.

An interesting point from the cast: Focused Accuracy seems to have been added to the Scrapper Weapons Pool. I hope they didn't excise any of the existing powers from that set, because I don't like FA very much and I love all the Weapons Pool powers. They are fun, and Focused Accuracy is boring (and for PvE, very much unnecessary).

Put Words In Castle's Mouth

Do it now!

Meet Bruce Harlick

An interview with mission designer Bruce Harlick is up at the official forums. Check the link in the CoX RSS feed at the bottom of this page or click here if you're nasty. ;)

I have no real comments on the interveiw as it doesn't cover anything that much interests me. The devs will have a better set of tools for designing missions (sorry, stories ;) ) than the players get in Mission Architect, but that's none too surprising.

Next up is everyone's favorite dev, Chris "Back Alley Brawler" Bruce. Quoth the BABs:

The very first task I was given was the teabag emote, which also lead to my introduction to the infamous Positron. He was extremely confused when some person he’d never met before meekly poked their head into his office to ask, “What exactly do you mean by a ‘teabag’ emote?”

This promises to be a very "interesting" interview. :)

Today's DING!s

Debuting on Today's DING!s we have the freshly respeced:
War Furnace, level 10 Battle Axe/Fiery Aura Brute

Having all four of the inital attacks in Axe is helping, but low-level Axe is still very poor at generating Fury. But I now know things do even out later on, so I just have to hang in there.

I can't wait to roll Mace. LOL

Looking At Brute Sets By Fury Generation

In having trouble building and maintaining Fury with my Axe Brute once again, I decided I would put to the test my hypothesis that Battle Axe is a poor Brute set as it generates Fury more slowly than the other sets.

Taking damaging powers from each set (leaving out things like Clobber, Hand Clap, Rage, Buildup, etc.), we can take their cast time and add to it their recharge time to get a raw Fury Generation Rating (shown in "Total"). We can then adjust this number to normalize the FGR in order to account for sets that have more or fewer attacks by dividing the Total by the number of damaging powers in a set (this eliminates the artificial advantage attack-lite sets have over attack-heavy sets):

Battle Axe
Chop 8.33
Beheader 5.33
Gash 11.5
Swoop 13.83
Whirling Axe 16.67
Cleave 17.33
Pendulum 17

Total 89.99
Powers Divisor 12.84

Super Strength
Jab 3.07
Punch 5.2
Haymaker 9.5
Knockout Blow 27.23
Hurl 10.5
Foot Stomp 22.1

Total 77.6
Powers Divisor 12.93

Dual Blades
Nimble Slash 4.03
Power Slice 6.03
Ablating Strike 7.03
Typhoon's Edge 14.27
Blinding Feint 13.2
Vengeful Slice 10.43
Sweeping Strike 12.23
1K Cuts 18.3

Total 85.79
Powers Divisor 10.72

War Mace
Bash 5.33
Pulverize 9.5
Jawbreaker 11.83
Whirling Mace 16.67
Shatter 14.33
Crowd Control 14

Total 71.66
Powers Divisor 11.94

So we can take the final adjusted FGR of each set (of course this list is incomplete) and show which ones generate Fury better than others:

1. Dual Blades 10.72
No surprise here. Dual Blades is famous for its fantastic Fury generation.

2. War Mace 11.94
Surprise number 1! War Mace is a Fury Generating beast. This is the Issue 12 number, of course. Dual Blades is 10% better at generating Fury than it.

3. Battle Axe 12.84
Surprise number 2! My hypothesis is falsified. Axe is 17% worse than Dual Blades at Fury generation, but:

4. Super Strength 12.93
Axe is actually 1% better at Fury generation than Super Strength, and Super Strength is also 17% behind Dual Blades.

This tells me that it isn't Axe, but me. This calls for redoing my power picks on my Axe Brute because I've apparently done the set an injustice. I think I'll drop Whirling Axe out of my plans, and pick up the first three attacks in the set and see how things go.

Can you say, "Respec at level 8?" LOL

Of course, Fury building chains (especially in the early game where my Axe Brute is right now) usually consist of the first two or three attacks in a set, plus brawl (yep, I'm an old-school Brute player. Of course when you solo as much as I do, you must generate Fury on your own. On large teams where there no other Brutes, there are so many mobs that it doesn't matter how fast your set generates Fury. But on small teams, solo, or where there are a lot of other Brutes, it becomes very important to take responsibility for your own Fury).

So in the early game, as you can see from the initial three attacks in each set above, Super Strength is ahead of Battle Axe in the Fury building attack chain metric. But as you level and you gain all of your attacks, this difference smooths out and Axe catches up (eventually overtaking by 1%). So maybe it isn't 100% me, the low-level Battle Axe really isn't all that great at generating Fury. And I skipped Chop, trying to make room in my build, but that is probably making a bad low level experience even worse by artificially creating a bigger gap than would otherwise be there (compared to my SS/WP Brute who has all three of the lowest level attacks, and no Fury generating problems).

But yeah, respec at level 8. LOL

Still, it's nice to know that it isn't Axe's fault. At least not completely.

Today's DING!s

The Star-Spangled Basher, Level 25 SS/WP Brute

War Furnace's New Look

He's lookin' pretty good now. Maybe a bit more tweaking, but I'm pretty happy with the look.

Starsman Analyses I13 War Mace

Here's the chart. Notice how much better War Mace I13 is over the current War Mace. Wow! It's the seventh-best single-target sustained set (up from 13th), and the single-target burst is even more impressive: third-best (up from 12th), behind only Energy Melee and Fiery Melee!

I13 War Mace is a viable PvP set because of that (single-target burst is the measure of how well a set will do in that environment, since that's the single most important metric for PvP).

Yeah, I'm so rolling War Mace in I13.

P.S. War Mace has some of the best customization options in the game, too.

October Calendar Wallpaper Time!

Here's the whole collection of calendar wallpapers, and here's October! As you can see, the Rikti Invasion event ends today. w00t!

Ah, Issue 6! The Issue when I started playing. Found out about the game through word-of-mouth (that's how 99% of people discover it since they don't advertise lol) and the description of a Mastermind making their pets do emotes and talk was enough to get me to sign up. I had just left Galaxies in frustration (IIRC) over the NGE, and City of Villains was a breath of fresh air.

I actually rolled a SS/INV Brute (Satan's Robot-- long since deleted) for my very first character after giving serious consideration to Masterminds and Stalkers. Droid Engineer (Bots/FF MM) was my second character (she's still around, but I rarely ever play her). I'd go on to discover the blue side of the game (it was kind of dissappointing how blueside felt far less polished than redside, but it was the older half of the game after all) and roll one of my favorite characters of all time and my first 50, Daemodand (MA/SR/WN Scrapper).

Good times!

New Font

I decided Courier doesn't look very good after all (it looks better on a printed page than on screen) so I'm going to use the default font from now on. Excuse the two-tone look of the blog until the older posts scroll off. ;)

Lineup Changes

Another roster change. This time Fury Flames (Fiery/Fiery Brute) is out, and War Furnace (Axe/Fiery Brute) is in. I decided I didn't want to replicate the Fiery/Fiery play of Funky Flames after all and went for something a little different. Axe/Fiery is a "classic" combination (axes and fire go together well for some reason) so we'll see how I like this. It'll save me from rolling another Tanker, too lol.

I'm already reminded of how Battle Axe eats lots of Endurance and doesn't generate that much Fury, though. And I'm not entirely happy at my first pass at the costume, but that at least is easily fixed.

I'll get a Mace Brute going once I13 hits. Or sooner if War Furnace doesn't work out.

Castle Talks I13 PvE Power Changes

In this article at the official forums, Castle tells us some of the PvE highlights to the power changes coming in I13 (I'm sure this is only the tip of the iceberg):

• Energy Aura gains Toxic Resistance and a small self-heal (4% per target when fully enhanced).
• Invulnerability loses the Defense debuff, is given more Defense for fewer surrounding opponents, 50% Defense debuff resistance, 25% Endurance Drain resistance, and 20% movement slow resistance.
• Kheldians get to use their Inherent in forms instead of just in human, get a range increase in human form, damage increase for all 3 forms, and can shift into Dwarf form even if mezzed. Also, toggles will not drop if mezzed. Khelds just might be playable now! I'll give them another go in I13.
• War Mace has Crowd Control max targets increased from 5 to 10, and Clobber becomes a good damage power rather than a control power. However, the set also, inexplicably, gets nerfs: Shatter's targets go from 10 to 5, and Clobber's disorient duration is cut basicly by half. The disorient duration cut I can understand, but the reduction in targets for Shatter? The set has damage problems and I don't see how this helps. Also, how does this affect Bane Mace I wonder? Will Banes be allowed to Crowd Control 10 targets with Crowd Control? I hope so!
• Temperature Protection from Fiery Aura gets a 20% movement slow resist. Something tells me this is going to be changed to 20% recharge resistance before all is said and done. Fiery Aura is very vulnerable to -recharge.
  
• Dark Melee's Midnight Grasp gets burst damage with some DoT, and the set overall gets a damage increase (I don't know if this will make it fun to play; I prefer actual attacks over utilities, YMMV).
• Energy Melee's Barrage gets an increase in Damage Per Activation. I always did like this power as it's one of the few fun animations in a very boring-animation set. Not everyting is about numbers, people! How a power looks and sounds is just as important in its fun factor if you ask me.

Very intereting stuff! I do want to roll a couple more Brutes based on this. I want to try Battle Axe/Fiery Aura (hey, a Brute is going to be better than a Tanker with this combo...uh, maybe lol) and Mace/Super Reflexes (I've been wanting to get another SR Brute going ever since I lost interest in my Axe/SR. I love that secondary, and Mace does have its charms. I love the mace moves on my Bane, but on a Brute the mace is a very different animal).

I would like to see SR get an increase in movement slow resist based on other sets getting its once-iconic 20% slow resistance. Maybe buff it to 30%?

At any rate, Issue 13 is proving to be a terrific Issue! I can't wait to see more about it!

I Fall For It Every Time

I make a Tank, it invariably doesn't work out because I just don't like the Tank play style, and I delete. Time passes, I forget what a boring/frustrating experience it was previously and I look at the fun Tank powersets (I've most recently been fantasising about Fiery/Battle Axe) and imagine how much fun that would be to play. I roll it, and it invariably doesn't work out because I just don't like the Tank play style, and I delete. Time passes, I forget...