Marshal Valor

The name of the mission that Maria hands out that has this encounter is "Defeat Siege and all Warworks". I've yet to find an EB in game that I couldn't handle solo. I remember the devs on live saying that the reason that they created EB's in the first place was because people were getting missions with AV's in them that they had no hope of normally fighting. So they came up with the idea of EB's so that people could take them on and do the missions. Onto the mission! I went in solo with the team number set to x5, EB's on, bosses on. I have fought Siege many many times. I lost track of how many times I took him out on different characters and never once did I have a problem until today. I have always gone after the EB's from the contacts. I always enjoyed facing up against signature characters. Makes it feel even more like a comic book. I am a tanker and I have full sets of IO's and I was taking down Siege just fine. Then he heals. He heals again. He heals again. He heals again. This goes on over and over ad nauseam. I got irritated and ignored Siege and started taking down all the clockwork so now it's just Siege and I. Again, heal, heal, heal, heal. This isn't a little heal. Its rather significant and it has a slow recharge time so he can pop it often. This is supposed to be soloable content. I shouldn't have to bring people into an EB fight. I was told "fight on a lower difficulty". The setting is on normal. The encounter was designed around the normal setting. Those settings didn't even appear until long after the devs created EB's. I was told "use inspirations". So the only way I am supposed to fight EB's is to suck up as many inspirations as I can and if I run out or take the wrong amount that's it? This encounter is either egregiously broken or it is unbalanced. Nobody likes an unwinnable scenario. I see nothing wrong with a challenge, until said challenge becomes unreasonable. This is not "normal". I used to write for White Wolf, I've done quite a bit of game design, and I also was an off the books consultant on EverQuest. A few servers were designed based off of suggestions that I made to the dev team. That's how some of the specialty servers were created such as the RP server. Now looking at this encounter with regards to challenging content; if I wanted to make the encounter more balanced I would increase the recharge time of the heal so that it doesn't become a nuisance. He couldn't really hurt me as a tanker but he was impossible to kill. The rest of the encounter seemed really well designed. I relented, went out and filled my tray with reds. Yes the whole tray. I burned through every single one of those reds (at 48) and that was the only way to beat him. I felt very disappointed afterwards and really resented that I was forced to use reds due to the nature of the fight with Siege. Then while I was in the mission the entrance disappeared. I know it's behind a truck. I came into the mission and flew past it a number of times as I was cleaning up clockwork. I had to use the base TP to get out of there. When I went back in, the red box that was the entrance was still missing.

I am only just now seeing this. I would have gone for this in a heartbeat. If the OP is still around @Marshal Valor is my global in game.

You're welcome, my guys in my guild know me for holding onto pretty much everything. I've always been sentimental. This is one of my favorite GM events that I got to see and take part of.

I had no idea that they were this involved with homecoming. It's a nice surprise. I'm excited for what the future of the game looks like.

Yeah I was pleasantly surprised by all of that myself. It's awesome to see all the stuff from back in the day. I am so grateful for the Homecoming team and all their hard work that they have put into making this place happen.

Haha no I had no idea, but I am glad that my life got too busy for me to post it. When I saw the anniversary event on mmorpg.com discussed and then saw that the original devs were going to be involved and I stopped what I was doing to make sure that this got posted.

I can't remember their names but they show up in the sewer trial and at the end of DFB. I meant to do this earlier, I kept forgetting as life was getting a bit too ahead of me. Those are the OG Rikti. It was all pretty crazy. Everything in that invasion is all still in game in various places. Minus the fact that their were flying Rikti ships. That's the only time that I ever saw those.

If I recall this correctly according to the lore that the ship in the Rikti war zone was brought down by Statesmen during the very first Rikti invasion when he turned himself into a missile and launched himself at the mothership. It crashed there and it's been there ever since. This is the only time ever in the history of the game that I think I've ever seen a Rikti mothership in the air.

It was a truly special thing. I've played many MMO's but that event was just so much fun. Even though I blasted from the back and played it tactically I still got sent to the hospital plenty hahaha. It was just so unreal, everywhere you looked their were Rikti, and the ships in the sky. It was just amazing. The devs went out of their way to make the game fun and special. I suppose that's why we are all still here 20 years later. I thought that people who hadn't gotten to beta test it might appreciate this, especially since the game is turning 20 and we have the devs here hanging out with us this year. I've spent more time in this game than any other MMO that I have ever played, and I've played most of the major ones. The community here is truly amazing.

AR/DEV I was in the back for sure, also made it easier for me to grab the screenshots. It was a hellacious fight.

The screenshots don't do this justice. Their were Rikti and heroes everywhere. Most of the 1st Fist of Light got locked out of the event. I think I was pretty much alone there as I recall. It was absolutely amazing. Their were bodies flying and it was just one giant fight everywhere you turned.

Day 2, the invasion commences on the last day of beta! I was playing the first iteration of Marshal Valor, an AR/DEV blaster. Their were 17 instances of Atlas Park that day.

My guildmates and I were waiting for WoW to come out and a bunch of them got into CoH beta. I kept saying that I will "absolutely not" be playing. I got asked point blank if I would try it if someone got me a code and I said "what could it hurt?" 20 years later here I am still playing LOL. I save just about everything, and these are screenshots from the Rikti Invasion that was the end of beta event for CoH. The characters in here are various members of my long term guild (SG) 1st Fist of Light. This is the day before the invasion when we were just seeing skirmishes and foreboding Rikti ships looming over entire zones taunting us all.

This is a question for Manticore. I remember on live you mentioned that their was a lore bible that mapped out the story of the game and where it was heading. The first reference of this that I recall was when the Council overthrew most of the 5th Column and their was an outrage that ensued. You mentioned that this was always part of the plan for the story. Is there any chance that said bible could be passed on to the Homecoming team if they do not already have it? I have been playing CoH since it was in beta and love this game. I would really love to see the rest of the story. It's very well done.

Thank you! You are the man! I can't wait to do all of these.