Grindingsucks

@drbuzzard Thanks very much! If someone can give me a similar guesstimate on Redside content, that would be much appreciated. I prefer TF's that are more likely to last for an hour or less (less is better, honestly). This should prove quite helpful when deciding which TF's to join. 🙂

It may be that my expectations are misplaced. I am a role player, looking for games that will enhance my roleplaying experience. I tend to think of CoX as an online, Superhero RPG. But maybe it is just meant to be a pure action MMO game, with a super-hero theme. In that event, I suppose it is unrealistic to ask for more changes meant to transform the game into something that it was never meant to be. I do, generally speaking, agree with the philosophy of KISS (keep it simple, stupid). So I do see where you are coming from. And yet, I can't help but feel there is so much lost potential for enjoyable game play here. Also, I can't deny the fact the the word "influence" sticks in my craw. If it isn't going to function according to its label (mechanically speaking, I mean), then just call it what it is: Resources (or wealth, or whatever).

Is there, per chance, a consolidated list anywhere on the forums of how long each TF/SF is expected to take? I'm not looking for exact times, obviously, just a close-enough, ballpark figure. And maybe an idea of what the mission creators expected it to take, time-wise, when they made them? I'm thinking of casual runs at a fun, relaxed pace- not trying to blow through the content as fast as possible in a speed run (which, personally, I don't care for). Thanks.

Interesting topic. I was just commiserating with a fellow in a different thread about how IO sets and incarnate powers make characters feel overpowered and the end-game too easy (and too easy in group combat, as well). I never played during live, but I've often wished I could find a server that ran without IO sets and incarnates. This might be the closest I could get to that. I'm not sure I'm interested in recreating EVERYTHING you mentioned about the game at launch, but I would be quite keen to play a non-incarnate, non-IO set hero in a group setting. I know of no other groups that run with those restrictions. Any chance I could get in on this group? I'd love to try it. 🙂

I've a tendency to be rather grumpy when commenting on the player market, so I'll try to keep it positive and helpful here. In a practical sense, I think most of the salient points have been addressed already. Fix the bugs with the price listings not showing (or showing the wrong price). Make the market accessible in bases, so we don't have to portal to the Vanguard base, University, or wherever to craft our inventions. fix the lag/hanging that sometimes occurs when making a purchase. Now, for a more personal suggestion. The currency of the game is called Influence. Now, why is it called influence, rather than just currency (or wealth, or money, or credits- as in most other games)? Presumably, because the mechanism for acquiring things is meant to represent not simply raw wealth and buying power, but networks of allies, political connections, fame, reputation, and/or even the ability to leverage threats and fear to get what you need. This is logical in a modern-themed super hero genre game, and is consistent with how it's treated in many tabletop super hero rpgs, and is also faithful to the source material in the comics. However, in a real, practical sense, it does not function this way in CoH. Rather, it is simply a unit of currency used to buy and sell on the market. I wish influence actually functioned as Influence, meaning that it could be used as a form of "social" currency, rather than simply "monetary" currency. How might this work, though? I have a few ideas. 1) Add dialogue options in missions that allow for the possibility to bribe NPC's, if you have sufficient amounts of influence. This could allow you to avoid fights, cause one or more enemies to switch to your side during a fight, or even allow you to get sprung from jail if you get captured during a bank heist or other mission (as opposed to simply bashing through the cell door, as per usual). 2) Add more influence related badges. These badges could be political positions, both local and national, from council member, to mayor, to senator, governor, etc. They could also represent corporate power (Shareholder, Major Shareholder, CEO, etc.). For Redsiders, they might represent control of certain "turf" in the Rogue Isles, or being higher in the pecking order of Recluses meritocracy. Maybe military ranks for people that achieve command positions in the U.S. army, or Vanguard, or Arachnos. Any type of badge might open up unique missions with political, corporate, or internecine warfare (for villains) themes. You might earn these badges, not just by paying influence, but by first completing certain mission arcs that then allow you to buy your way in. 3) Earn a salary from your non-hero/villain job. Politicians earn a paycheck. So do stock traders and CEOs. Villains running a criminal organization bring in wealth. This could be a daily, or weekly, or monthly (whatever) influx of influence proportional to whatever badges you've earned. 4) Supergroup Base NPC's that can only be placed if you have certain badges. Security and bodyguards for politicians/business tycoons. Wolf Spiders or Family goons for bad guys. No, they wouldn't have any mechanical application, in-game, but it would be a nice little prestige thing that would be cool for people that have swanky bases and had accrued a decent amount of social clout/currency. I'm sure that I could think of other applications but, the point is, the idea of making the unit of currency in the game something more abstract than simply pure wealth is a wonderful concept with a great deal of potential, but that potential has simply not been leveraged in any meaningful capacity in the game. I would love to see that change.

I have a Beam Rifle/Radiation Armor Sentinel that is one of my favorite characters. Lots of fun to play. 👍

Maybe, but I feel you hard on this one, brother. Not having played the game during live, I often wonder what it felt like prior to the advent of IO sets and incarnate abilities. I love Homecoming and have a great time here, but it would be interesting try a server that didn't use IO's and incarnates. Now, as to the OP, I do have a lvl 50 StJ/SR scrapper. I really had to push myself to keep going with it prior to my mid-20s, but once I started getting my defenses properly boosted, I really began to enjoy SR. I tend to rely on resist-based sets, so playing this was quite a new experience for me. The set feels more risky to me, and therefore more exciting to play, than resist based sets. With strong defenses, you almost never get hit at all. But on those rare occasions when you do take a hit (or, even worse, two or three hits in succession) your health will plummet dangerously, due to anemic resists. I really sort of enjoy this, oddly. It DOES simulate the feeling of playing a hero that relies on dodging out of the way, as opposed to just soaking hits, and it lets me feel powerful and heroic, but not invincible. I'm acutely aware of the fact that I'm just one or two unlucky RNG events away from taking a dive. I find I sort of like that and it makes me cautious enough to try to always keep two or three insps. in reserve for such occasions.

Hee, hee. Well, multi-session might be okay, actually. If you take breaks between missions, and do them over a course of a few days, that would be less exhausting. The ones I've done (granted, I've only participated in ITF's 3 times) they always run all the missions back to back. It's also possible my groups were just unusually slow, I suppose, so there could be that.

I don't do speed runs. But, no, it's not one of the shorter TF's. If you aren't doing a speed run, they go upwards of an hour to an hour and a half. A TF/SF, going at a normal pace, ought to take about 20 to 30 minutes (this is just my opinion, I don't want to be dogmatic about it. Many others may feel differently).

No objections to the OP's suggestions, but if I were going to add my own suggestion, it would be to shorten the length of the task force. The thing is just too *bleeping* long. It's got a lot of fun elements, but it's too exhausting for me to want to do more than once or twice. I avoid them, now, for that very reason.

I can't disagree with your assessment. Those guys really seem to have the magic. I haven't felt like I was watching "my" Star Wars, since the first episode of this show aired. It gives me hope for the future of the franchise. 👍

It is fan service. The very best kind of fan service. I love the show. This is a callback to the original trilogy, but better, with the best parts of the new stuff thrown in for good measure. To this old SW fans heart, it's the best Star Wars that ever Star Warsed. Why can't the new movies be this good?

I know I'm going beyond the scope of the OP, but can I propose a new AT with a primary and secondary powerset? Road Warrior: Uses existing vehicles as costume/skin. Customizable effects for powers are different weapon mounts on the cars body. Use existing two-tone coloring options for vehicle. Primary powerset: Vehicular weaponry (guns, rockets, flamethrowers, etc). Secondary powerset: Defensive driving (drop oil slicks, caltrops, mines. Get defense bonuses for maneuverability. Temporary speed boosts to escape (nitrus, turbocharge, or whatever). I'm sure one could think of lots of vehicle-related powersets (e.g. Offensive driving: Rams, blades that pop out of the wheels, etc. Look at various car-combat games for ideas) and the models could leverage existing assets (the color-tintable cars and trucks, etc.) I think it would be a lot of fun. No idea how hard it would be to implement, of course.

I'm pretty sure that if you pick the tutorial for redside, it runs you though that scenario each time. Maybe I'm misremembering that, though. It's been a long time since I played any of the tutorials.

Nothing will ever be ported from Thunderspy to Homecoming, due to compatibility/stability issues, and the fact that the various servers aren't necessarily friendly towards one another. That's been covered in multiple threads. They might glean a few ideas to make their own versions, though, who knows?

My gripe with it is that you can't change the look. Even the color is locked into that plain grey tone. Apart from that, most of the FX for attacks and defenses are ((IMO) pretty bad looking. Maybe worse than Ice Armor FX, though that might be stretching it. But with the new teleport pool, I don't see how the slow movement of Granite should be a problem any more, unless TP powers just don't fit into your concept (Which is quite possible, and totally legit. It IS a bit hard to think of a big, heavy rock guy as a teleporter).

The top one looks more evenly spaced to me, therefore computer generated and less random. The bottom one looks a bit like a representation of a shot of the night sky, and therefore natural / random.

RNG's have always felt wonky to me, regardless of the game I'm playing, though this manifests in different ways depending on the game. In CoH, I notice quite frequently the results are probably accurate, but weighted oddly, such that when I have a 95% chance to hit, instead of missing about once every 20 attacks, I seem to run a hot hit streak for like 30 minutes, then I'll roll over 95% three or four times in a row. That happens an astonishing amount of the time. I've also noticed both my attacks and the enemies attacks being incredibly accurate in sequence (rolling several instances of 5% or less, sequentially). If I went back and did the calculations, it would likely average out properly to a 95% hit rate, but the way it manifests during combat feels weird. 😁

Animation time is part of the game balance and having to wait for the ability to fire off, before you can move, is just part of the game design. More damaging powers and/or those with potent secondary effects typically take longer to animate. Less damaging ones fire quickly, so you can attack rapidly by way of compensation. You can break line of sight by running around a corner or behind certain objects. Other than that, there's no dodging in the game (except what is inherently provided by your defense rating). These things aren't everyone's cup of tea. It they're not your cup of tea, it may be time to look for a new game. Maybe try a set like Savage Melee before you give up on it, altogether, though.

Possibly. Do you have a steak in getting them?

I do rarely have the problem of a physical object separating me from the target. This is usually a target that is slightly elevated above me, with a waist-high barrier between myself and the object. Otherwise, combat teleport works brilliantly and has become my new, favorite power. Fold space is the one that I actually have the most trouble with, as it seems to fail to trigger about 50% of the time. Possibly I need to slot it for more accuracy, or it's just bad luck with the rng, but it still feels a bit buggy to me. Anyone else have issues with it? The others TP powers work great, although I haven't got Team Teleport yet (though I plan to get it), so I can't comment on that one.

I wish. That would be cool. Not sure if it's possible with regard to the code, though. But if you REALLY want to wax dreamy over the unattainable, I wish we could throw people THROUGH walls, crack streets, collapse buildings, and cause all the destruction one might expect from a rampaging super brawl. There would, of course, be NPC repair emergency/crews to fix the damage. Also, perhaps new (or new applications for existing sets, like forcefield) powersets used only for repairing/preventing damage, protecting civilians, etc. That would be tantamount to designing a completely new game, however, so I don't expect to ever see it. Still... fun to imagine. 😁

I don't hate Flurry.... when it hits. But when you trigger it and it misses, your toon looks like an idiot. 😂

I played hit and run with them both, on +0/1 difficulty. They were challenging fights and I enjoyed them. I mentioned in a review post that Pathogen killed me, but I actually meant Cortex (that super-illusion copy power was the one that caught me off guard. I froze up and hit the wrong buttons and wound up eating the floor.). Pathogen did come awfully close, and I had to run around in circles around the medical curtains for a while, when I was really beat up, waiting for my bars to recharge. I still haven't tried the arc in a team yet, but I'm looking forward to it. I'm fine with the difficulty, as-is, but not averse to a bit of tweaking to tone it down, either. I can always ramp up my notoriety rating if I want more of a challenge. I would not want it toned down so much that it becomes easy to beat in group combat, though. One thing I would offer as a bit of advice to people: Retreating and running are always options. Even super heroes need to cut and run sometimes, so they can regroup, come back, and win the day.

I enjoy having a sort of "ownership" over the name that I make up, so I appreciate the unique name aspect of the game. With regard to the bland/generic names, I admire clever and imaginatively named characters a more than blandly named ones, but I acknowledge that each players has the right to name their own character. I enjoy roleplaying, so it can be a bit jarring when I'm trying to immerse myself in the game world, but certainly no more (and, probably, a lot less) jarring than people that don't roleplay at all.