Eh, Purple enhancements aren't cheap, so got to do what you got to do, since is either that, even more interaction with the AH or farming.
3h and 14 min, but did Dr. Q's Wild Ride since is the Weekly Task Force aka you get 244 merits. Still got to buy Assemble The Team and the Mission Teleporter, but those are worthwhile investments on a main,
Yeah, getting team teleporter can help turn that into 2 hours. You can also pretty much blitz four out of the five identical portal labs since the glowies are all in the same place, and that one lab with long corridors and three elevators on the first floor is also mostly skippable - boss room's always up the second turn on the left, and the relevant glowies are all around that floor somewhere.
Real surprise though when one of the Rularuu portal groups spawned in the little access crawlway on the first floor portal room. Being a melee and attempting to mow down the proper targets in all that chonk is not a good time.
Yeah, we kinda didn't started to stealth stuff until halfway done, so time is longer.
Overall, I get that they changed things up to not have every TF end up with a fight against an AV, but having the end mission of a 22 mission Task Force be....a defeat all on the Orabenga map is highly disappointing. Specially because we had to spend an additional 5 minutes looking for the last mob.
In comparison, the Sara Moore TF (which is very similar by also being on the Shadow Shard and having the same structure, but "only" 15 missions) has a very satisfying ending on an unique map against a very cool looking AV.
A lot of stuff about the Shadow Shard TFs wasn't so much a deliberate decision so much as "we ran out of budget/time and threw together what we could from what we had."
+1
H3KnucklesBut we decide which is rightand which is an illusion.Registered Userregular
A lot of stuff about the Shadow Shard TFs wasn't so much a deliberate decision so much as "we ran out of budget/time and threw together what we could from what we had."
That's kind of the story of CoH though. Like, the things they were able to manage given the constraints they were often up against were pretty awesome.
A lot of stuff about the Shadow Shard TFs wasn't so much a deliberate decision so much as "we ran out of budget/time and threw together what we could from what we had."
Huh. That's a shame. Rularuu look cool and are fun to fight (they give even Incarnate characters a run for their money) and the Shadow Shard is amazing, though "go to Paragon City and back" is not a cool gimmick. But then, the idea seemed to be to slowly rework things on the game before, well, you know.
it's kinda hard to think your way back to the MMO design of 20+ years ago but they evidently really thought that people would dig doing a large number of repetitive missions over the course of several play sessions; the idea (or so devs claimed, anyway) was that you'd do TFs with a group who'd all log out, then back in all at the same time to finish up as though you were a regular D&D group or similar. Which is part of the reason the early TFs were so full of repetitive missions, evidently; so that when your group got together they'd have plenty to do.
it was ridiculous of course; it was ridiculous even in 2005. But it is at least at first how they envisioned those tfs being done
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
+3
H3KnucklesBut we decide which is rightand which is an illusion.Registered Userregular
it's kinda hard to think your way back to the MMO design of 20+ years ago but they evidently really thought that people would dig doing a large number of repetitive missions over the course of several play sessions; the idea (or so devs claimed, anyway) was that you'd do TFs with a group who'd all log out, then back in all at the same time to finish up as though you were a regular D&D group or similar. Which is part of the reason the early TFs were so full of repetitive missions, evidently; so that when your group got together they'd have plenty to do.
it was ridiculous of course; it was ridiculous even in 2005. But it is at least at first how they envisioned those tfs being done
IIRC, WoW had a bit of that thinking on the dev part as well, early on. There's a lot of stuff in the vanilla version of the game that came from thinking that MMO's could be like D&D for people.
Can't think of a better place to stick this, so- if any of you have any intent of ever firing up Champions Online again, they are currently giving away a Freeform slot in light of the current situation (you need to log into the game before the 17th and claim it from the store).
To be honest, CO should just make all character slots freeform if they want any chance of that game's population recovering, but I think at this point even that is like 5+ years too late.
Thanks for the heads up! Looks like this will, as I've mentioned earlier in the thread, allow me to bring my first character "full circle" without having to pay to unlock the archetype.
Can't think of a better place to stick this, so- if any of you have any intent of ever firing up Champions Online again, they are currently giving away a Freeform slot in light of the current situation (you need to log into the game before the 17th to get it. For me it just converted my top/latest character to it, I assume because I've already maxed my unsub slots).
To be honest, CO should just make all character slots freeform if they want any chance of that game's population recovering, but I think at this point even that is like 5+ years too late.
Actually I started playing it again just over a week ago lmao, I just didn't want to admit it. They started making new content for it again last year and I saw an article about it, so I figured why not.
They definitely made the leveling progression and areas more interesting, the art style still looks real bad tho, everything still looks like flat plastic. I made a Dragon archetype (kung-fu DPS/tank hybrid) since I didnt have any freeform slots and those are still insanely overpriced at $30, though you can earn that currency in-game.
it's kinda hard to think your way back to the MMO design of 20+ years ago but they evidently really thought that people would dig doing a large number of repetitive missions over the course of several play sessions; the idea (or so devs claimed, anyway) was that you'd do TFs with a group who'd all log out, then back in all at the same time to finish up as though you were a regular D&D group or similar. Which is part of the reason the early TFs were so full of repetitive missions, evidently; so that when your group got together they'd have plenty to do.
it was ridiculous of course; it was ridiculous even in 2005. But it is at least at first how they envisioned those tfs being done
IIRC, WoW had a bit of that thinking on the dev part as well, early on. There's a lot of stuff in the vanilla version of the game that came from thinking that MMO's could be like D&D for people.
To be fair, that is mostly how I approach MMOs these days. That doesn't mean I want to do a lot of repetitive missions, though.
So, since last time. Homecoming is officially 1 year old today, at April 24th, so they put their new anniversary badge: Resurgent, for every character that logs during May. Also can buy all previous anniversary badges from Luna at Ouroboros for 100 merits each.
Also there's going to be a bunch of Rikti Invasion events from May 1 to May 12.
On personal notes, found some people to play with, got in a bunch of +4 groups and have a new 50, my Fire/Fire Dom, Flamewalker:
Started doing Tech characters, then Magic characters and now playing a Mutation character. Dominators are very, very fun once they get going, but....died a lot getting there. Like, I have all my debt badges already. Still buying her IOs and only have Alpha slotted, but I'm having a lot of fun playing her. Speaking off, pro tip for Fire Control: You can slot the Knockback to Knockdown IO into Bonfire and it turns from an incredibly annoying power to a super amazing AoE Knockdown patch. KB Bonfire is up there with Fire Imps on the list of best powers of the set.
+5
RingoHe/Hima distinct lack of substanceRegistered Userregular
Yeah my Mind/Fire Dom back on Live was incredibly swingy depending on enemies. Perma-Dom made that much more manageable
it's actually pretty wild how many powers become good once you just swap the knockback to knockdown
bonfire is exhibit A but yanno what power is also quietly pretty great? Gale. If you cast it on cooldown it's almost like having an ice patch down; that's a lot of time to spend casting gale but hey, if you're a low level controller you have time
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
it's actually pretty wild how many powers become good once you just swap the knockback to knockdown
bonfire is exhibit A but yanno what power is also quietly pretty great? Gale. If you cast it on cooldown it's almost like having an ice patch down; that's a lot of time to spend casting gale but hey, if you're a low level controller you have time
Oh yeah. Between that and people figuring out that you can stack a bunch of damage procs on the same power and it does good damage even on low DPS archetypes, Storm now is a high DPS power set.
I think that Knockback should be completely replaced by Knockdown, but people would throw a massive forum fit about it and Homecoming Devs lean to the more "keep it mostly the same" side of things so we have the set IO compromise.
Pretty sure there's some inherent balancing to the cost of knockback versus knockdown powers, so I imagine they'd need to reduce the effectiveness of currently-knockback powers to align them if they changed them.
Now personally I want a knockback-to-knockup IO set. Then I can slot everything else with KB enhancements and send fools to the sky. Lift and Levitate are so much fun.
[edit] Kay tells me slotting KB into knockup powers does not, in fact, make them knock up higher. Boo. Boo!
Call it Stockholm syndrome, call it stubbornness, call it "I solo defenders so WTF do I know anyway", but dangit, I like my knockback.
The degree to which the CoX meta optimizes in favor of ruthless efficiency and against things like concept and flavor, in a game that's supposed to be about comic book (and now movie) superheroes, depresses me sometimes. It's hardly exclusive to this game, though; decades before "everyone takes the Speed pool, just for Hasten", we had every Champions character buying up SPD, whether or not there was anything in their origin or concept to make them faster than the average human, simply because it sucked to only go twice in a 12-round turn.
First off, you can squeeze a lot of power from even not-meta sets, and this game is a lot more forgiving than, let's say, WoW, so that's not a major issue.
Second, on Knockback itself, is not even about being meta or not, is that...well, Knockback may be fun for some players, but everybody that plays melee on groups with characters with a lot of Knockback has a general (so, not you) tendency to have less fun because having to chase mobs around all over the room to hit them is very much not fun. Is that fair? I think it isn't, but is my personal opinion and HC's solution is a compromise between both points of view.
TryCatcher on
+1
Just_Bri_ThanksSeething with ragefrom a handbasket.Registered User, ClubPAregular
I miss my blapper so much. Tanks got pissed when I punched mobs off of them, but it was only one at a time and the mob I punched was doing nothing until it got back up and ran back over to the tank and I anyway, so I didn't see the downside.
...and when you are done with that; take a folding
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
0
SaldonasSee you space cowboy...Registered Userregular
I really should jump back on and work on my corruptor, but I have no clue how I'd maximize his dps at this point, mostly felt like a weak blaster, though I've been quite handy in groups for the rez, heals, and accuracy debuffs. I also have a lot of current slots set up for a bit of damage reduction since I was soloing stuff kinda often (which suuuucks).
I miss my blapper so much. Tanks got pissed when I punched mobs off of them, but it was only one at a time and the mob I punched was doing nothing until it got back up and ran back over to the tank and I anyway, so I didn't see the downside.
I hated playing with blappers, then I made one. Maaaaaan, it should not be so much fun to do stuff that pisses off everyone else on your team.
+4
RingoHe/Hima distinct lack of substanceRegistered Userregular
Eh, it's one thing when your team is struggling and you make it harder. If they're steamrolling it shouldn't bother anyone
Eh, it's one thing when your team is struggling and you make it harder. If they're steamrolling it shouldn't bother anyone
It's not a matter of difficulty, it's a matter of annoyance. When you're melee you want mobs on you, because chasing individual mobs and wasting cones on singles or duos sucks. When you're an AoE-er you want mobs clumped up, otherwise you're paying a hefty END price for the damage you deal. Those two playstyles click well together, because they both want the same thing- tanks (or any melee taking aggro) pull the mobs in, your ranged dudes do their AoEs, everyone sees numbers fly up, fun is had.
Then in comes the blapper that, for a relatively low amount of one-time damage compared to what your entire team would have done over the next 10 seconds of chaos that will follow, blasts them all out of range. Now the DoT AoEs are doing nothing, your blast AoEs are hitting two or three at most, most of the mobs are out of the melee's aggro auras and any additional damage from the rest of the team is just further pushing your melee dude's aggro off the top spot, making the mobs run at everyone except them... it's annoying.
For everyone except the blapper, who's giggling because they just had a high impact play. It's the CoX version of having a rogue that steals from the team.
+2
Just_Bri_ThanksSeething with ragefrom a handbasket.Registered User, ClubPAregular
That being said, Blappers are easy to compensate for by tanking on a wall or in a corner.
...and when you are done with that; take a folding
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
+3
KayWhat we need...Is a little bit of PANIC.Registered Userregular
edited April 2020
1) Not All Blappers Are Knockback Focused - let me introduce you to STRONTIUM DOG who has no knockback at all. The biggest KB fiends are:
Storm Summoners
Energy Blast users
Energy Manip/Martial Combat Blappers
2) What are the questions, @Just_Bri_Thanks ? I can probably answer them.
On a personal achievement since I have never gotten too deep on Incarnate content:
Kinda got a group that had enough Lore pets knew what it was doing for everything but the escaped prisoners, next group was a regular one that got zero escapes. The control tools felt great, did felt that I was helping quite a bit. Maybe not as much as all the Longbow mecha, but up there.
+3
RingoHe/Hima distinct lack of substanceRegistered Userregular
I got my seven year old daughter playing and this is how our typical session goes:
- login and make new characters
- Reluctantly arrest bad guys that inhabit the edges of the small lake with the statue in it. She likes to swim.
- Reach level 4, get SS, SJ or Fly
- Spend the next 10 minutes playing either tag, or hide and seek in Atlas.
- Log to Character Select and make new characters.
- Repeat repeatedly.
I have three pages of characters that are lvl 4 or lower.
I think all my characters are at least 14 and I have quite a few in the 20s and early 30's. I got it in my head I needed one of everything. Every powerset is represented in some way between all of them with a few duplications when I got it in my head to make themed duo's/groups with my son. Latest has been getting all our laser shooting characters into one SG called Lazer Boyz who is lead by Dr. Lazer himself - robot MM's, Beam Rifle wielders and our 3 Arachnos Soldiers. Our motto "We bring the heat"
Posts
Yeah, getting team teleporter can help turn that into 2 hours. You can also pretty much blitz four out of the five identical portal labs since the glowies are all in the same place, and that one lab with long corridors and three elevators on the first floor is also mostly skippable - boss room's always up the second turn on the left, and the relevant glowies are all around that floor somewhere.
Real surprise though when one of the Rularuu portal groups spawned in the little access crawlway on the first floor portal room. Being a melee and attempting to mow down the proper targets in all that chonk is not a good time.
Overall, I get that they changed things up to not have every TF end up with a fight against an AV, but having the end mission of a 22 mission Task Force be....a defeat all on the Orabenga map is highly disappointing. Specially because we had to spend an additional 5 minutes looking for the last mob.
In comparison, the Sara Moore TF (which is very similar by also being on the Shadow Shard and having the same structure, but "only" 15 missions) has a very satisfying ending on an unique map against a very cool looking AV.
That's kind of the story of CoH though. Like, the things they were able to manage given the constraints they were often up against were pretty awesome.
Huh. That's a shame. Rularuu look cool and are fun to fight (they give even Incarnate characters a run for their money) and the Shadow Shard is amazing, though "go to Paragon City and back" is not a cool gimmick. But then, the idea seemed to be to slowly rework things on the game before, well, you know.
it was ridiculous of course; it was ridiculous even in 2005. But it is at least at first how they envisioned those tfs being done
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
IIRC, WoW had a bit of that thinking on the dev part as well, early on. There's a lot of stuff in the vanilla version of the game that came from thinking that MMO's could be like D&D for people.
To be honest, CO should just make all character slots freeform if they want any chance of that game's population recovering, but I think at this point even that is like 5+ years too late.
Actually I started playing it again just over a week ago lmao, I just didn't want to admit it. They started making new content for it again last year and I saw an article about it, so I figured why not.
They definitely made the leveling progression and areas more interesting, the art style still looks real bad tho, everything still looks like flat plastic. I made a Dragon archetype (kung-fu DPS/tank hybrid) since I didnt have any freeform slots and those are still insanely overpriced at $30, though you can earn that currency in-game.
To be fair, that is mostly how I approach MMOs these days. That doesn't mean I want to do a lot of repetitive missions, though.
Twitch Channel
Also there's going to be a bunch of Rikti Invasion events from May 1 to May 12.
On personal notes, found some people to play with, got in a bunch of +4 groups and have a new 50, my Fire/Fire Dom, Flamewalker:
Started doing Tech characters, then Magic characters and now playing a Mutation character. Dominators are very, very fun once they get going, but....died a lot getting there. Like, I have all my debt badges already. Still buying her IOs and only have Alpha slotted, but I'm having a lot of fun playing her. Speaking off, pro tip for Fire Control: You can slot the Knockback to Knockdown IO into Bonfire and it turns from an incredibly annoying power to a super amazing AoE Knockdown patch. KB Bonfire is up there with Fire Imps on the list of best powers of the set.
bonfire is exhibit A but yanno what power is also quietly pretty great? Gale. If you cast it on cooldown it's almost like having an ice patch down; that's a lot of time to spend casting gale but hey, if you're a low level controller you have time
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
Oh yeah. Between that and people figuring out that you can stack a bunch of damage procs on the same power and it does good damage even on low DPS archetypes, Storm now is a high DPS power set.
I think that Knockback should be completely replaced by Knockdown, but people would throw a massive forum fit about it and Homecoming Devs lean to the more "keep it mostly the same" side of things so we have the set IO compromise.
Now personally I want a knockback-to-knockup IO set. Then I can slot everything else with KB enhancements and send fools to the sky. Lift and Levitate are so much fun.
[edit] Kay tells me slotting KB into knockup powers does not, in fact, make them knock up higher. Boo. Boo!
The degree to which the CoX meta optimizes in favor of ruthless efficiency and against things like concept and flavor, in a game that's supposed to be about comic book (and now movie) superheroes, depresses me sometimes. It's hardly exclusive to this game, though; decades before "everyone takes the Speed pool, just for Hasten", we had every Champions character buying up SPD, whether or not there was anything in their origin or concept to make them faster than the average human, simply because it sucked to only go twice in a 12-round turn.
Second, on Knockback itself, is not even about being meta or not, is that...well, Knockback may be fun for some players, but everybody that plays melee on groups with characters with a lot of Knockback has a general (so, not you) tendency to have less fun because having to chase mobs around all over the room to hit them is very much not fun. Is that fair? I think it isn't, but is my personal opinion and HC's solution is a compromise between both points of view.
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
Switch: SW-1493-0062-4053
Switch: SW-1493-0062-4053
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
mobs fly slightly further, but it doesn't really have any impact on how long they stay 'knocked'
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
Then in comes the blapper that, for a relatively low amount of one-time damage compared to what your entire team would have done over the next 10 seconds of chaos that will follow, blasts them all out of range. Now the DoT AoEs are doing nothing, your blast AoEs are hitting two or three at most, most of the mobs are out of the melee's aggro auras and any additional damage from the rest of the team is just further pushing your melee dude's aggro off the top spot, making the mobs run at everyone except them... it's annoying.
For everyone except the blapper, who's giggling because they just had a high impact play. It's the CoX version of having a rogue that steals from the team.
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
2) What are the questions, @Just_Bri_Thanks ? I can probably answer them.
3DS FCode: 1993-7512-8991
Kinda got a group that had enough Lore pets knew what it was doing for everything but the escaped prisoners, next group was a regular one that got zero escapes. The control tools felt great, did felt that I was helping quite a bit. Maybe not as much as all the Longbow mecha, but up there.
- login and make new characters
- Reluctantly arrest bad guys that inhabit the edges of the small lake with the statue in it. She likes to swim.
- Reach level 4, get SS, SJ or Fly
- Spend the next 10 minutes playing either tag, or hide and seek in Atlas.
- Log to Character Select and make new characters.
- Repeat repeatedly.
I have three pages of characters that are lvl 4 or lower.
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.