ranagrande

February 16

I am currently going through everything mostly solo on a petless pool power only mastermind who isn't allowed to buy anything.

I wouldn't recommend it, but it should serve as proof that literally anything can work.

February 13

Yeah, I don't really trust the level ranges on the wiki. Like the lowest level origin contacts outside of city hall are listed as 5-14, but I remember them capping at 9. Did they change that sometime?

I'm not doing everything at the minimum level on my current run, but I did do Shauna's and Eagle Eye's arcs at 7.

February 13

Agent Phil Coulson is a good example of a mastermind hero.

February 10

1 minute ago, Rudra said:

Per the Live devs, the game only has 2 alignments: Hero and Villain. Rogues and Vigilantes are still Villains and Heroes, but cludged to be able to get to the other side's zones. Praetorians are another cludge and aren't Hero or Villain, as best as I know. And if you give them the ability to get one of the alignments before they finish the Praetorian content? Then they will only be able to do the First Ward and Night Ward content (when they get to an appropriate level to do so). So, there is a reason why Null won't even give the alignment change option to Praetorians.

In the code, I think Loyalist are Villains and Resistance are Heroes.

But couldn't it be made to work with Null to switch back and forth between all of them?

February 10

2 hours ago, Vic Raiden said:

Therefore, I propose another solution: dispose of Null, or at least revoke his power to change player alignments on a whim.

Null is far too useful to remove, and I would very much be against removing his alignment ability unless alignment tips and their associated missions became available from level 1.

If anything, I would want to see Null's alignment powers extended to Praetoria so that it would be possible to do a full blue/red/gold playthrough on one character without needing to use Ouroboros.

February 8

I'd like to see Praetorian epics be unorthodox power combinations.

Maybe something like

Aggressor - Defense/Support

Protector - Melee/Ranged

February 8

Villain merit rewards are all over the place. In the 5-9 range, if you do all of Mr. Bocor's missions, you get 2 merits. At the same level, if you do all of Billie Heck's missions, you get 28 merits.

February 7

You should make S.T.A.R.T. stand for something different in each location.

February 7

My current project is a strong candidate for the worst build ever. I am 100% certain that it is not properly slotted.

February 7

Good change.

I still have the same concerns about the role diversity list, but a once-per-character badge should be much less disruptive than a daily reward.

Hopefully you can find another way to award aether that isn't tied to team composition for those who feel slighted by this change.

February 6

Just now, arcane said:

Wavicle hit the nail on the head: a bonus for any 5 AT’s would not be accomplishing the same goal as this bonus. Apples and oranges.

This is true.

However, I believe that accomplishing the goal of this bonus would have a detrimental impact on the game. So replacing it with something that does not achieve that same goal would be much preferred.

February 6

1 hour ago, kenlon said:

The suggestion for having the bonus kick in when you have five different ATs on the team has come up repeatedly, and I think it's a good one.

Devs, is there a technical reason that this wouldn't work? If it's something that would be a giant pain to implement, then I'm not going to keep pushing for it, but otherwise it's really a better way to encourage team variety than requiring certain ATs based on very fuzzy "roles".

It would not be difficult to implement.

I would not be opposed the five different ATs idea (I may even have been the first to suggest it) even though I would prefer not to have discriminatory team-building mechanics in the game at all. It would certainly be better than the proposed Role Diversity Bonus.

February 2

Here's what I'd like to see if you really want to get more people playing villains: a huge amount of new content.

Specifically, I want a set of mutually exclusive story arcs in the endgame that culminate in your villain becoming the leader of one of the major enemy groups in the game.

Then make that actually matter. Have people comment on it. Have NPCs of your chosen group no longer be hostile to you. Have repeatable missions where your minions are begging their boss to save them.

It would be a massive amount of work, yes. But it would be awesome.

February 2

9 hours ago, Riverdusk said:

Definitely this. Would love to see "Defensive Follow" added as a default power tray button for new MM's. Use the gold shield with blue outline looking button that right now defaults to "defensive". At the very least, drop that defensive button down into the tray.

I'd just like to see defensive be the default for Follow. That way the starting MM commands would have one for each stance.

February 1

The second round is complete. At level 7, I now have 59 badges and 142 merits.

I didn't mention it last time, but I took Stealth as first pool power at level 4. It saves lots of time and makes outdoor travel much safer. At level 6 I decided to solve my geometry problems by taking my first travel power, Super Jump. So my attack chain was still just Pistols, Dual Wield, and Throwing Knives, with the occasional Caltrops and Brawl thrown in. I'll start picking up more attacks and transitioning to melee soon.

Blueside was much, much more difficult than red this time around. The first annoyance was a mission to hunt Vahzilok in King's Row. You can get that mission starting as early as level 5, and most of the Vahzilok there are around level 12. I did eventually find some 8s and 9s that let me complete it.

The Skulls/New Regulators arcs have some tough boss fights. I was doing hit and run tactics against Chernabog, hitting one or two attacks and then running out of the mission to heal up. After my third such re-entry, another mastermind with the same mission asked if I wanted to team up for it. I'm not one to ask for help, but I won't turn it down when offered; this is a team game after all. After that it was easy with two masterminds and two pets, both hers of course.

Veles I did solo with the hit and run technique. I only had to enter the mission a dozen times. I did have the timer run out while saving the guy afterwards, but as I mentioned in the other thread about timers, it didn't affect anything. I was still able to complete the mission and I still got the badge for it.

The last thing I did on blueside was Frostfire. He should have been much more difficult. He was the first enemy to really stack mezzes, and my goto hit and run strategy wasn't working as well because he has higher regen. I was beginning to think I might be in trouble. But then Frostfire got stuck in the tree in the center of his room. We didn't have line of sight, but if I jumped, I could shoot him. And he could do nothing but run in place in his tree. It felt like an exploit. It felt like cheating. But I won.

Redside was comparatively easy this time around. The only difficult fight was 3k Kelvin, but I only had to re-enter that mission twice. I had another mission that said I would need at least 4 villains to do, but the only hard part about that one was finding the target.

Now I get to double up with the most leveling I ever get to do at once. Next stop, level 14!

January 31

1 hour ago, BrandX said:

That doesn't matter. It's not that Basic ATs can and do, it's that if you pick certain sets, they can fill multiple rolls.

But however, seeing the complaints, I don't think it's a matter of the rolls. I think people really want to get this reward, so they REALLY want to get it easy. It's easy to understand that they wanted to make a rule that the basic ATs only count for 1 thing and the epic ATs count for 3.

Makes sense for that rule on this. I guess people really want that reward all the time.

I would prefer for the reward not to exist at all.

January 30

I wouldn't want anything in bases tied to prestige again. But if you want to bring the system back and have badges for earning prestige, then sure, why not?

And to keep it from being completely useless as a currency, add the option somewhere to buy a merit reward for one billion prestige.

January 30

And as for the epic ATs, they are much rarer than their basic counterparts. Not because they're weak, but because (ironically for this topic) they lack diversity.

Every basic AT has over 100 different combinations of primary and secondary powersets. The VEATs have 2. The HEATs have 1.

CoH is an extremely alt-friendly game, but there is little reason to make alternate *EATs.

January 30

3 hours ago, Paradox Fate said:

I am going through the Twinshot Arc right now (and filling missing dialogues in theirs arcs in the wiki), and this is where Dillo tells you to go to the University and talk to the Professors.

Ironically, none of the 'Professors' will actually start the Invention Tutorial, you have to talk Admissions Officer Lenk for that, though they do tell you to go to him.

Interestingly, Red Side guides you directly towards the NPC who starts the tutorial in Cap, but you only talk to him about something related to the Heart of Darkness arc, completely skipping the mention of his tutorial. And you only get a brief comment of Enhancements from Zephyr regarding that and the clue about it, but not that you can start the tutorial at this NPC by interacting with him again.

I think Gold Side only mentions their 'University' once you reach 10 or so and the trainer throws it in after you finished leveling up.

Definitely needs a bigger exposure, everywhere.

If they're fixing the pop-up at level 10, it should be fine.

January 30

15 minutes ago, arcane said:

That really isn’t true and you can prove it with clear times.

A theme team will usually do better than a random assortment.

Regardless, not everyone cares about speed. Taking a little longer to complete a mission does not make a bad team.

In fact, a common complaint I see from new people is that teams move too fast for them to understand what is going on.

January 30

Goldside is definitely harder than red or blue. It can still be soloed easily enough, but it often requires tactics and strategy where otherwise facerolling would suffice. This is especially true for stalkers because the ambushes ignore stealth, and masterminds because ambushes ignore pets and focus fire on the character.

January 29

1 hour ago, Jimmy said:

Twinshot's arc does actually trigger the Invention tutorial, but we probably could do with exposing it a bit better.

Was this also changed recently? As I recall, going to the university during The Shining Stars/Hearts of Darkness missions does not start the invention tutorial because they have other dialogue for those missions.

You have to talk to them again after the mission to get it.

January 29

1 hour ago, BrandX said:

Yes, but it was explained, that the basic ATs count in one category. Only the VEATS/HEATS count in three. So, they have to go somewhere. It's not based on strength in meta numbers on it.

Yes, I saw the explanation, and I object to it. Forcing ATs into categories this way is not good design.

January 28

Controllers, Corruptors, and Masterminds all have support for their secondary sets. In many (if not most) cases, masterminds have the weakest version of these powers. Yet they're classified as support while the other two are not.

January 27

1 hour ago, Reiska said:

If the primary goal is to influence the way players form teams, I think it will be reasonably successful at doing so, but I question if that is something we *want* to do and I agree with some of the other voices around here that it would make me less excited about attempting to team with people in general.

I think this is clearly the primary goal, based on this response earlier in the thread:

On 1/22/2024 at 11:57 AM, Cobalt Arachne said:

Disagree, that is not an alternative suggestion because it does not achieve the same goal. ATs are not roles.

Simply bringing 5 different ATs does not promote healthier team composition balance because all five could technically be the same one or two roles.

And I do not believe that this is a goal that should be pursued. Role balance is not important for general teaming in this game and should not be incentivized.

Especially not with a list that ignores most roles filled by most non-epic ATs.

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