Grindingsucks

Yeah, we've got to have a least one pistol expert in the group. It's basically mandatory. 😁👍

Well, we've got four or five interested players here (including me). It might be time to lay out suggestions for the specific build parameters and such. I would like to have at least dozen founding members (just so we have high odds of having at least one other player to team up with when any of us are logged on), but it'll do for a start. The topic has only been up for 2 days now. I reckon we'll get more interest in days to come. 😉 So for build rules, I suggest the following. Feel free to comment on them and suggest changes and/or alternatives as seems good to you: 1) Members are level 38. Experience is turned off at lvl 38 to prevent rising above that level. If members want to join at a lower level, that's okay with me too, although having everyone at the same level makes it vastly easier to design AE arcs, choose taskforces and have balanced play. 2) Go to Pocket-D, set your alignment to Vigilante. If we go with the Team name of The 38 Specials, as suggested by twozerofoxtrot (and hey- I think it sounds pretty cool! None-the-less, I'm also open to other ideas for names, if anyone wants to toss their hat into the ring) I think a group of Vigilantes just feels on theme. Also, it allows us to venture over to red side to RP vigilante actions in the heart of bad-guy central. 😁 3) Enhancements are limited to SO's, but you can also slot individual Proc's and Globals from enhancement sets. No more than one proc or global of each type may be slotted (including universals). This is to prevent insane DPS turnover via 5 LoTG + Haste and other such hijinks. We want good, strong characters, but not overpowering ones. The goal is to feel "Super" but not invulnerable. I want to be challenged, I want to have to work closely with and rely upon my teammates, and I want AT roles to matter! 4) I think most P2W powers are fine. For mid level characters, things like stun grenades, back up radios, throwing knives and the like can be a lot of fun. Several of the movement modes (ninja run, beast run, so on) are flavorful and look extremely cool w/regard to their animations. Feel free to make notable objections if anything OP'ed comes to mind. Anyways... I reckon that is a good place to start. What do you guys think?

Thanks for the advice, tidge. 🙂👍 I typically use City of Data to get a solid grasp of what powers do and Paragon Wiki to see what enhancement sets do for bonuses. Weave is always on, so I always get the global/proc bonuses, unless I have the misfortune of getting zapped by a sapper or some such (Oh, yes- this happens! 😛). I'm a bit of an odd bird, in that I frequently slot with an eye for enhancements that thematically reinforce my RP concept, and/or produce a cool visual effect when they fire. I do, of course, consider combat effectiveness as well, though this is often a secondary or tertiary concern for me as I find the game sufficiently easy that I enjoy having some notable gaps/weaknesses to make play more challenging and exciting. These sorts of Achilles heels are often related to my character concept, as well. On a somewhat unrelated tangent- another odd quirk about me is that my characters abilities frequently change because I may "borrow" enhancements by unslotting them and emailing them to myself, to be used on a different character. Later, I may unslot them again and return them to the original character (or a different one), depending on which character I want to enjoy at any particular time. Yes, this is expensive in the long run, but I typically always have enough inf on hand to unslot the enhancements I need and put them on a different character. This saves me a lot of farm grinding (which I loathe) to save up the influence to buy them for every character.

I find that those who enjoy roleplaying and those who do not, typically make for a poor mix. Casual/action players will become bored or uncomfortable during the lulls in combat, where RP and IC stuff is taking place, and RP'ers may become distracted or annoyed by the action players OOC chatter or lack of IC engagement. Instead of trying to shoehorn yourself into an RP group as a non-RP player, why not just take the basic kernel of the idea (self-imposed level and build restrictions, structured tactical approach, etc.) and start your own, casual/non-rp SG? Now, having said that, it might be possible to RP an introverted, silent character akin to Black Noir, from the Prime series, The Boys. Or, as TemporalVileTerror suggests, a robot programmed with a few canned bits of dialogue put into macros, where you just come along and act as extra firepower for the team (the conceit could be that one of the members of the group built and programmed you for that purpose, or some such). I'm not opposed to you trying this, though, as I mentioned, I think it likely you'd grow bored in the long run, given that there will be a lot of RP and that isn't really your thing and I would want to be sure that you didn't disrupt any RP in progress, with OOC chatter (not that RP'ers never engage in any OOC banter. We just try to keep it separate and to a minimum, so as not to become to intrusive and/or immersion breaking).

Thanks, tidge. 🙂 I was aware of that, I just hadn't thought of making a macro button for build switches.

Handy! I never thought of setting that up, before. 👍

@SeraphimKensai I don't view them as such, because you don't have two separately branching class trees to choose from and can switch back and forth between the forms. Granted, such things are largely a matter of subjective opinion. YMMV, and what not.

I agree with the OP. Standing in a group around the giant gate at the end of ITF, waiting for it to swing shut so I can click on it again... it makes me want to scream. 😱

Blasters were designed for mixed play (ranged/melee) from day one. You can choose to play them as purely ranged, if you wish. As for how they "should" be played, they "should" be played in whichever of the two styles you enjoy the most. With the exception of VEATS, there are no subclasses in CoX.

@mechahamham 1) I agree with the point of view of your entire post. I think the changes you suggest would greatly improve the play experience in high-level content. 2) But it won't work, because you would alienate the greatest portion of the Homecoming player base, who prefer to have soft-capped defenses on every AT. You may find the following topics relevant to your point of view, given the subject matter of your own topic: Is there any way to make teams less boring? The Thirty-Fivers

I don't plan my builds in mids, but I can provide screenshots of my enhancement management screen. He's also improved some after a respec, so the numbers will be different (better) now. I'll post some screenies of those, too. Still has what many would take to be unacceptable resist vulnerabilities, but I find he performs exceptionally well in most +4 content and pretty much always in groups. He's even more survivable now, though if say a sapper gets a lucky hit before I can take 'em out, those toggles collapse and it's all over but the cryin'. 😆 As you may notice, resists are now even lower, while defense is much higher to handle any -def issues and attacks from higher lvl mobs and such. He's a speedster, so I think this is fitting with his theme. His body is a bit tougher/durable than a standard human (You have to be, to withstand the stress of charging around and making sudden starts/stops at 90 mph) but he's never gonna be shrugging off bazooka shells like the Thing/Hulk. That's fine by me. I don't want an invulnerable god. I want a fun, powerful hero with a few interesting weaknesses who still needs to play smart and use strategy like hit and run tactics and such. Anyway, I hope the OP has since learned the joy of StJ/Willpower Scrappers. 😁👍

The 38 Specials / 38 Supers? I see what you did there! 😁 I'm cool with either one. It would be a fun little in-joke referencing the level cap and they both have a nice ring to them. For some reason those names suggest Vigilantes to me. What do you guys think? As far as bringing in pre-existing characters to the group, as long as they conform to whatever build limitations we decide upon, I don't see why not, if that's your preference. New characters are fine too, of course. I'll add more later, but I have to toddle off to bed soon. I've got to get up at 3:30 am tomorrow to take my kid to the airport. Feel free to continue to discuss in the meanwhile, if you like. I'm happy to see a few interested people already! Hopefully we'll get more bites in the days to come. 👍

@Darmian No problem. I can see it was a genuine oversight. 😉👍 @TemporalVileTerror I'm not strictly wedded to lvl 35. 38 sounds fine, too. We just want to make sure we don't keep budging until we're right back at lvl 50+. The idea is to choose a specific, mid-range lvl cap to keep play in the sweet spot for what we have in mind. Also, if you (or anyone else) has different ideas and suggestions, feel free to throw them out there for consideration. This is meant to be a sort of group-brainstorming project for people with similar play preferences, but we're all going to have slightly different ideas about what we want out of a group. This topic is meant to be a collective discussion point so that we can try to create a play environment as favorable as possible to everyone. Realistically, no one will get exactly what they want. The goal is to make the best team and RP oriented SG we can concieve. NOTE: I do have guests tonight and we're having an evening of board games, so I might not comment on replies right away, but be sure that I'm keeping an eye on the topic!

You don't have to tell me, brother.

@Templarstone I made this one two hours ago: The Thirty-Fivers Alas, no bites as of yet. Still, the day is young. 🤷‍♂️

The creation of this topic was triggered by the discussion engendered by @RogueWolf here: Is there any way to make teams less boring? I've been playing on Homecoming for well over a year now. I love the game. I love the creativity available to players in customizing characters and power sets. I love the rich setting and play environment and the ability to create your own bases. I love that there is a custom mission creator, and I love Everlasting server, in particular, because there are so many wonderful and creative players available to enjoy roleplaying super-powered beings as much as I do. However, I have this problem. I cannot find a SG where I properly fit, based upon my particular playstyle. I've joined a great many SG's (both heroic, villainous, and various shades of grey) and eventually dropped out of all of them. For the most part, this is no fault of the founders or members of said groups, who are nearly all wonderful, accommodating, human beings with the same creativity and passion for RP that I have. My particular sticking point is twofold- group combat and the sidekick/exemplar system intended to enable it with characters of disparate levels. Specifically, I have the following issues: The sweet spot for play for me is around the early to mid thirties. By this time I have an interesting selection of powers, a decent number of enhancement slots and, overall, a character that is highly capable in the tradition of many heroes and villains in the comic books. I would prefer to play this level of character in both solo and team-based play. In reality, because I greatly desire team-based roleplay, I most often level my characters to 50 or higher. If I find lower level play more satisfying, why is this? Why not simply stop levelling in the mid-thirties and be done with it. The best way to explain this is to describe my experience in playing such a character in SG or PUG teams. It goes something like this... Firstly, all the SG's I've joined have a great many members of lvl 50 or higher (most of which also are incarnates). PUG's often have a large percentage of these, as well, and frequently have the highest level member carry the star for maximum exp/inf gain. So, with my mid-thirty guy in such a group, here is my play experience: 1) Notoriety is tuned to the difficulty of the 50+ characters. I am cannot hit anything and cannot survive more than one or two hits- frequently dying and being revived during the mission. Not enjoyable. 2) Notoriety is tuned to where I am now able to survive without dying repeatedly, but I'm still whiffing with most every attack due to level differences, and cannot apply my powers in a way that makes me feel like I am actively participating in a meaningful way during combat. Not enjoyable. 3) Notoriety is tuned to where I can both survive and effectively apply my powers to the enemy, at least some small portion of the time. This is fine. Unfortunately, the difficulty has now been reduced sufficiently that the 50+ are like conquering gods who blast all the mobs off the map in a nano-second. I may get lucky and take out a mob or two, that the others have brought within an inch of death, but that's about it. Again, not enjoyable. If I make a fully-kitted lvl 50, I can now join with the others in a frenzied mob holocaust by running around like an antelope on crack and repeatedly hammering my power buttons. Still relatively boring, and not what I had in mind, but the most enjoyable option, so far, that is available to me. I may even enjoy a bit of rp banter, here and there, though there is precious little of that because I mostly don't have time to pause and RP, because there is no pause between engagement of groups of mobs to allow for it- only a hectic dash from one group, to another, to get as many kills in, in as little time as possible. Better than a stick in the eye, as my old pop used to say, but not really what I had in mind. I believe, for those of us that have similar experiences and desire something different, that we can make team combat a very different exercise indeed, with a little forethought, planning, and effort. I therefore propose the following: We of like mind could create a Roleplay Supergroup focused on level 35 play (revised to lvl 38 play after group feedback) As a place-holder, I'm presently calling this group The Thirty-Fivers (renamed to The .38 Specials. Thanks @twozerofoxtrot!) The actual name, concept/theme, and alignment (hero/villain/vigilante/rogue) of the group would be decided in group discussion, perhaps aided by voting in a series of polls, or some such. But why level 38 characters, specifically? Here is my reasoning: 1) Characters of this level are strong, but not overpowered, having an interesting selection of powers and a reasonable number of slots to enhance them. This allows for interesting characters with lots of variation, the feeling of being a capable hero, but still being able to tweak content difficulty to challenge characters with this capability. 2) By level 38, you have access to over half of available TF/SF's in the game and a large chunk of story arcs, allowing for the team to engage with a great portion of this games considerable content. 3) If the team is comprised of lvl 38 characters, and lvl 38 is the self-imposed cap, team members should usually be relatively balanced and equally capable (or near enough to make team play meaningful and enjoyable to all AT's). If all group members are lvl 38 and levelling is capped there, we can focus almost exclusively on RP and dynamic group interaction and story-based combat. In other words, members will not be off grinding/farming to get to the next level or pay for that expensive IO set. And with regard to that last bit, I also propose the following: We limit enhancement slotting to SO's and Globals and Procs (for a bit of variety and personalization), but do not allow full IO sets, due to issues of expense and power creep. We might also limit Procs to only a single proc of each kind, a maximum number of procs, or so forth (again, to curb expense and power creep). What I'm looking for, is allowing wide latitude for character customization but staying focused on RP/Story and minimizing (as much as possible) the amount of farming and grind. All of the above suggestions are just that- suggestions based on my personal preferences. Obviously, there would have to be a certain amount of push/pull and compromise and I look forward to discussions of that kind. I do hope any interested players will reply here with their own ideas and opinions. Finally, I would ask that players that are NOT interested in this sort of play/group not post in this topic, so that the topic isn't derailed with unhelpful negativity. I still fear it will be hard enough to find players interested in this idea, and I don't want to make it any more of an uphill battle than it needs to be. Thanks for your interest.

Sure. I think maybe some clarification is in order about what some of us mean when we use that phrase. Some of us are looking for RP-oriented team-based combat that emulates what we see in the comics. In the comics, hero teams practice and train together (think of the X-men's Danger Room, etc.) and develop specific tactics for combatting foes. Each member of the team brings something unique to it, that is their particular talent or powerset, that effectively helps the team hang together and perform effectively in the face of dire threats. Any team member that has not fully learned how to control and best apply their powerset is a weak link the team roster. Some of us want team-based combat to be interesting and dynamic and to provide leverage for drama/story-based play focused around learning said teamwork and developing tactics. We view team-based play in CoX as being potentially more complex, interesting, and exciting than a gang of 8 random, over-tuned AT's in a PUG, that each surge across the map randomly hammering power buttons, with little to no strategy or interaction, while still being able to clear the mission in an astonishingly short time, even at +4/8. We want tankers to feel like they are the reliable bedrock- that anchor that draws aggro and bravely stands in the center of the enemy, weathering a hail of blows so that the controller can immobilize the foe or hobble them, or turn them against each other. We want to wait for the Stalker to scout ahead and provide valuable intelligence on enemy positions, then relay this to the team leader (who is perhaps the scrapper or blaster with good charisma, tactical planning skills, and leadership pool powers- or another AT similarly inclined) who may decide a plan of attack, or task that Stalker with infiltrating and assassinating a certain sentry, group of sentries, or enemy boss. This is not really an example of something that is "wrong" or "broken" with the game (although many of us might- rightly, I think- argue that power creep has rendered team play less interesting at higher levels) but, rather, a kind of play preference. In my view, the thing to do to address this issue is to find other, like-minded people to enjoy that kind of play. I have, in the past, felt like such an outlier that it seemed pointless to pursue such a group, thinking that there are not enough members of the player base with the same view of team play, to make a group of this kind. This topic is beginning to make me feel like that might not be true, after all. Perhaps, those few of us who want to experience something deeper during team play might be able to band together and create the very thing that we desire. I, for one, certainly hope this will prove to be the case. 🙂🙏

Hmm... alrighty. I'll have to cogitate on it some more, then. I'm cool with SO's. IO sets tend to really over-tune the power of a character when you have it all kitted out. I do love my procs and globals (that crackly sphere that envelops the target when a hold proc triggers gives me a little tickle of joy in my heart) though. I'd probably want a middle of the road approach to IO's, allowing individual procs and globals but no sets. That seems like a reasonable compromise. I'll try to work up an initial pitch and put up a dedicated topic for it. If we get enough interest, then we can hammer out the particulars.

Well, possibly. Those guys are more into recreating the specific experience of the early live game, though. Not sure if something less focused would appeal to them. Then again, I guess there's only one way to find out.

I'm not scoffing and, indeed, you are not alone in thinking that teams are often boring. My play experience is precisely the same as yours. Solo play is fine- one can dial the notoriety up or down as needed, and get precisely the level of challenge that is exciting, while not being a steamroll or so hard as to be frustrating. Teams tend toward the steamroll at levels 50 and over, which then renders AT specialties (tanking, controlling, heal/buff/de-buff) almost an afterthought and often makes for a boring (if frenzied) experience. I had once thought to address this by creating an RP supergroup dedicated to play with characters of lvl 35 or lower (players would voluntarily shut off xp so that they would not level beyond 35). I never tried it because I reckoned there would not be enough people interested in that kind of play over a long term duration (must players I see when I use search are 50 or higher). But reading this topic makes me wonder if there aren't enough of us to form our own SG specifically dedicated to the sort of play we enjoy. Maybe we ought to start a recruitment topic and bat around ideas for a group of this kind? If there are at least a dozen or so of us, maybe we could get something going? If so, then we could hash out the specifics (Villains, Heroes, or Vigilantes? SO's, Standard IO's, IO's sets? etc.).

That's not a bug, amigo. One of my villains, The Prankster, repainted those. Public works haven't noticed and fixed it yet. What a bunch of rubes. HA! 😁

Perfectly understandable, then. Thanks for the clarification and the link to the relevant topic.

My point was that someone said someone else (A Dev, I'll assume) tested this and found that it broke the game. This is anecdotal (hearsay, would be the word, if we were speaking in legal terms) and offers no further explanation for how it broke the game. I'm disinclined to rely upon anecdotal replies offered as evidence for why a particular suggestion isn't viable. It may well not be viable for very definite reasons. But if you want me to accept (and, more importantly, understand) that, you'll need to provide more specific details about why it didn't work the first time it was tried. I feel a word or two from the person that actually did the testing would be helpful here. I'm not particularly interested in removing the requisite power. Although it would be nice to have the choice to decline to take it, it's not really that big a deal to me. But, yes, I continue to remain skeptical of the claim that doing so would break the game, until someone can explain to me the how's and why's of it, with some solid evidence to back it up. I don't think this is unreasonable.

It's a really fun idea, though. You could keep the general concept (tiny, psi-based, melee character) and just use regular power selections instead of focusing on power pools.

I didn't much care for project will or wall of force. The cast time is largely what bugged me about them. You're always going to be a little frustrated and disappointed with "Pool Power" focused toons, I think. But, then again, that's sort of the challenge of making one, no? The goal is to complete content with a sub-standard toon that's made as good as possible (which, let's face it, is probably never going to be "good").