Lazarillo

So I finished Oberst Strax's arc on a new Crab Spider (to also test customizations and such), running the whole thing with XP off, at level 24. A couple notes: This arc is so...simple. Mission briefings that are like four lines long. Plant bombs, collect tech caches, normal missions against normal level 20 enemy groups. The bosses have one little nonsequiter and then a taunt when you start fighting them. Ships, warehouses, and abandoned lab...have we gone back to i6 villain content? I LOVE IT. Like, it's nice to just unwind with some straightforward missions, and this is fun and nostalgic and classic Striga Isle, y'know? And even with that, though, there are some really nice touches. Little references to hero arcs, stupid one-off stuff that made me laugh ("Our museum!") and Strax doesn't have a lot to say, but what he does really sells that 5th Column evil jackboot jerk vibe. Again, this is stuff that's very "Classic CoH" and might not be for people who were more into some of the game's later arcs, but it made it really fun for me. And I admit going into the final mission I was curious what sort of enemies would make up the base's "automated defenses". I was kinda dreading just a boring map full of turrets, but what was actually presented was something I hadn't thought of...but was solid. There were a couple small bugs here and there. After finishing the arc, all the Clues remain in the dropdown and no Souvenir (which would normally sum things up) is awarded. I am not sure if the Clues will eventually disappear once the arc is outleveled, but either way, it needs a little cleanup. Also, one of his repeatable missions was to do a Council hunt, and the mission even says "Defeat Council in Port Noble" on the nav, but the objective was "Defeat 20 Warriors". Also, the Clues for what's found in the first couple of missions describe the items indirectly, "this box contained...[x]" and describing the items in the past tense, while in the back half it was more direct presentation of the items themselves that were described. Making them consistent (I think the latter works better) might sound a little nicer. It also gave 20 merits! For 6 missions, but only one was a "defeat all"...I'm not complaining but that does seem a touch high. So all that said, I think we need to address the elephant in the room and remember that anyone can be a badguy, but villains have standards. The setup here is not good. Now, granted, I haven't gotten to the remaining arcs yet, and it's quite possible that this is going to go somewhere pretty fun and interesting (or at least build off of it while maintaining the classic/simple vibe I liked from it), but just going "anyway, so here you are taking a job from a Nazi guy" is not how these arcs need to start. It's far too limiting in terms of concepts that would actually start the arc. In the patch notes thread I suggested one alternative might be to do it like how Brother Hammond's arc has the PC "team up" with the Luddites by making it clear they're just playing along to exploit the contact and screw them over. Something like that, admittedly, might distract a little from Strax's simple but apt dialogue, though. Another option might be (if possible) to set up a different, mutually exclusive first Contact for the arc that gave the same missions but under the guise of trying to beat both the 5th and the other groups to the goodies? Set it up through Arachnos even, using the little never-followed-up-on teaser that Ernesto Hess was a plant for them (something that may come up in later arcs, I hope it does!). Regardless, "thanks for working for me, here's your money" is not really a good way to end an arc, nor motivate a character, when the person you're working for is in the 5th Column. That really needs to be addressed for this arc to be something I actually want my characters to seek out.

I am assuming this is in the beta patch only. I have not seen it on live, however, it does not relate to any of the actual patch notes I've seen. While running missions as a villain on Striga Isle, a Cor Leonis Archon transformed into a Warwolf. The Warwolf punched me, doing knockback. This is normal, because I am playing a Crab Spider to test that too, and don't have KB resistance in my build at the moment. However, when it hit, the FREEM! feedback text that pops up during the April Fool's event also appeared! I am pretty sure this is not normal.

Noted. I might swap 'em if things go live as-is then. I have a very...let's just say high concept build on my Bane that I love, so the build is really tight, but I could probably make that work, particularly if the updated Web Envelope can take targeted AoE damage sets.

Not sure if this is intended or not, nor whether it belongs here or in the APP feedback, but the Mace Blast from Scorp's epic pool still use the longer animation times, at least according to the numbers displayed in-game. I've been using that on my Bane to round out my ranged options since it's also a nice prerequisite for Shatter Armor, and since I need a prerequisite, I'll still be taking it over the primary version anyway, but I'm curious if the lack of parity is intended.

Granted, I have no real skin in the game. This won't influence my teaming habits one whit. It just means sometimes I'll get an extra 2½ million influence on TFs, but with random mission-end rewards, that's already a thing. On the one hand, that in and of itself is kinda janky. On the other, the amount of flak I've seen Defenders get for being "less damage" even in the face of their significantly meatier support, makes me think that if the intent is one for each, then putting Corruptors into the "ranged damage" category makes perfect sense, when that's how they're treated by many players.

Being correct is not the same as being right. I'm reminded of people in the very olden days daring to ask for Dual Blades to wield a Main Gauche in their right hand/both hands and Dev-BABs throwing a tantrum and refusing because "that's not what Main Gauche means!"

Am I missing a patch note about that being removed? Or are you saying that it should be removed?

Holy schneikes, I remember noticing something seemed off about Savage Leap never critting wayyyyyy back when, but I never realized it was a bug. Always just thought it wasn't meant to crit. Where's that old Savage Stalker I abandoned...?

This is probably the intent of putting it behind a badge that basically any villain is likely to get at low levels: parts specifically tailored towards Villains, which Heroes aren't likely to see/receive. But that doesn't mean I support that intent, either. As everyone else has said, these pieces should just be open to everyone. HC doesn't need to go back to the "grind for costume pieces" philosophy that was mostly just used to keep people paying subscription fees, regardless of context.

I've done some fighting of these new guys and mostly like 'em. I was a little worried that with Storm and Seismic being very...visually intensive at times, they might be kind of poor choices to give to normal enemies. But appropriate to their status as minions, it seems like the Thorn Casters got more modest abilities. New spirits are nice, new LTs are a mixed bag (I don't really think LT Succubus should be able to Placate, as untouchables are more an annoyance power than anything, and too common as it is even on bosses...but it's not without precedent). Haven't run into high level Ruin or Madness mages yet but I did enjoy the surprise of an Agony Mage Dreadful Wail-ing in my face right when I thought I had him.

In theory, no player should know about that in the level 20 range. Though there are other reasons even evil-types should meet a 5th Column character and apply boot liberally to face, nothing further needed. (I haven't done the arcs yet, but I'm gonna hope this is written in a way similar to Brother Hammond where the mission intro includes a "yeah, you could play along with this yokel briefly, sounds like a good way to screw him over for personal gain"-type narration.)

As a Striga Isle fanboy, I can't wait to get in and actually try these arcs. My immediate reaction though based on current play of level 20+ villains is to wonder how much that range really needs more content. It's already packed! I get why Striga kinda needs to be in this range, so in light of this new stuff, slight tangent, I know, but how about looking into increasing the caps and/or moving the level range on, say, Dean MacArthur/Leonard, Bobby Curtins, and others?

Hopefully it's sellable.

I was always the impression the statue of him is a 1:1 scale.

Even those those sets are in the code, HC avoids them because they don't want to be accused of ripping off the other communities that did them, for better or worse. It'll probably something kinda niche, and oddly specific, like "Symphonic" Control was.

I mean, there's still not a timetable, so I'd assume that if people ask you the answer is still "eventually, at some point".

Okay, I see what looks like VEAT power customization. Which means that I'm now stuck. Because if it is VEAT power customization, I'm never gonna play anything but a Fortunata again, probably. And if it's not VEAT power customization, then the fakeout is going to leave me so annoyed that nothing else in the patch could possibly salvage it.

...and there's a lot of "working as designed" function that still doesn't function the way it "should" in Ouro. For example, if you miss Praetorian content (which is extremely easy to do even without any XP gain buffs), and go back and use Ouroboros to complete it, the game's ongoing story flags won't pan out correctly. Given Praetorian content is generally more punishing than equivalent stuff in the Primal Level ranges, contacts at least needs an increase in its cap. ...but honestly, it'd be nice just to be able to finish stuff. My anal-retentiveness hates that I have a character who permanently is stuck with Diviner Maros' contact bar half-full because I outleveled his arc but not his standalone missions, and he stopped giving me stuff before we were done.

Have you considered that I'm actually living in the future, after it's rebuilt?

And let me do Tips there! I want to live in Galaxy City again!

Okay, but more importantly, why aren't you deliberately "failing" that mission to get double the payday for doing nothing but enjoying the show of Dr. Aeon getting taken down live on the air?

A bit before the original loss of the game, I started playing a lot of Star Wars: The Old Republic. Particularly, I got into it because I didn't like how a lot of late-original-CoH wrote its story arcs, and SWTOR was more to my liking on the writing front. Somewhat ironically, by the time CoH resurfaced, SWTOR had started doing the same things in terms of storytelling that CoH had done before its original shutdown, and so these days I tend to bounce more between the two. Also, though not an MMO, but possibly from leaning into Bioware due to SWTOR, I got on a real Dragon Age kick for a while, too, to sort of satisfy my love of creating new characters. That's another I've somewhat fallen out of love with though (or at least, with the third, and likely any hypothetical future games in the series).

...because he's the only one?

So here's one that I didn't know, kinda turned out for the best, but damn, if I'd known the sheer ripple effect it was going to create... Anyway, the item itself is under spoiler text, but there's a whole story to it. For full effect, maybe don't read the spoiler of what it was until after the rest of the post? Started the game in...mid 2005, I think it was (I do remember it was, just by coincidence, like, the day after i5 first launched, and man were people pissed...I digress, but the date is important). Created a really basic character, Fire/Ice Tank, and named him "Paradox". Couldn't believe that it was an available name, but I wasn't about to complain. I log in, play the tutorial, wow, this is amazing! Only I get near the end of the tutorial, and realize I got the name 'cause I misspelled. He's "Paraodx". D'oh! No problem, delete, come up with a new name, try again (I forget what I picked at the time, though I do have the character remade on Homecoming with a name I'm sure isn't what I used then). Over the next few days, made a few other characters, to try all the other ATs, including a Sonic Blaster named "Upset Vibration" (a rock-n-roll-er parody), a Dark Scrapper named "Dark History" (a deliberately silly edgy character who became my first 50), an Illusion Controller, "Lazarillo", (a carry-over from a TTRPG I made for a game with some friends at the time), and a Rad/Rad Defender whose name I don't recall. I'm going around, and someone explains global channels to me, and I join Protector Watch. Oh, but the name it lists for me is that first character I made, with the misspelled name. I don't want to be "Paraodx", so I figure, hey, I'm on my controller, I'll use that in chat so people will know which character I'm on. Now go back and read the spoiler if you didn't already. 18 years later, and my accidentally locking myself to the name of that one character in-game, I start using it on the official CoH forums, and then in other places, and then others. And now, I'm like, "Lazarillo" (or something very close) almost everywhere as an online handle. All because I wanted to chat with the alt I was using at the time. If only I'd known when I'd started, I was gonna have to commit to that changed name.

Why play Mind Control, when I can play a Fortunata? (Okay, besides the fact that I can't color my Fortunata powers.)