CaffeineAddict

News just in! Exclusive photo of the Failtanic:




Here's another one, to reinforce the need for more /e facepalm:




Hehehehe. I did a google image search. The first 500 or so results are all variations of Picard... he's quite the popular facepalmist

After reading the OP, I was unable to resist in a heavy smiting of google face-palmery. I felt the dire need to illustrate how foolish the concept of scrappers-with-guns is.

They might as well add chickens to the game, and, give them guns. Could be the new epic archetype. Except the chickens also have eggs that they can use as artillery, and, to taunt you with. Bu-cawk!



Oooooh that's a good one!

So here you go. MUCH MORE FACE PALM:

This. I agree with all that you said Aliana.

In the past, I have found new players in Galaxy, on trial accounts. I met one the other day and showed him how to find the yellow line, travel across zones, where hazard zones are, etc. He had no idea that he could leave Galaxy and was very excited. He was level 5 when I found him, and he was running after me trying to catch up and talk to me in local chat, asking for help etc. So I did. I also showed him Atlas Park, and he was "OMG" over how many people were in atlas (I don't think he had seen any or many players in Galaxy when I found him). Someone put speed boost on him and he went nuts (in a good way).

Had I not been there in galaxy (hunting xmas present glowies), he would have continued to run about solo, slowly killing mobs on the street and not been able to see team chat, high level missions, power variations etc. Sure he might have found the train or another player eventually, maybe, if he stuck it out.

My point is, trial accounts are only good up to level 14. It doesn't take long to hit 14 now with the new xp boost, and the player getting bored/frustrated fast. And trial accounts have a lot of difficulty meeting other players due to the limitations on chat. I understand *why* there are limitations, but I feel they are in need of changing.

Maybe allow trial accounts to get up to level 25? Also let them reply to tells (so they can join teams).

The best selling point for CoH in my opinion, is the social teaming. This can make the game a lot of fun for those that enjoy company. If we can get new players onto teams with less difficulty, that will help to get them want to subscribe

Things to keep me interested would include:

• Revamp Boomtown. Add shops, a hospital, a trainer. Make it a low-level coop zone. Villains could enter from the sewer tunnels on the boom map. (dirty villains). Add some contacts there with new missions and some repeatables.

• Add mini zone events unique to each *city* zone (if they don't already exist). Steel Canyon, Skyway, Talos, IP and Kings Row already have mini events (with building fires, troll raves, ghost ship and paladin construction respectively). But it would be fun to have something similar added to the other zones. And I'm not talking about giant monsters for that matter. It could be a bank robber fleeing through the zone that you can catch, or a wandering mini-plague of embalmed abominations; a stampede of robots; a large gang of damned bosses trying to summon a demon EB under a timer; a lost hero NPC that needs escorting to a signature trainer in the zone; a massive riot of skulls trying to attack the hospital (because the nurses will never treat them); a runaway giant donut in faultline that needs destroying; etc. I'm sure others can think up better ideas than mine too

• Add more easter eggs to the existing zones. These are fun to find (for me anyhow).

• Add 2 new complete *power pools. *gasp*. Could include a new travel power also.

• Add 1 new patron pool and 1 new epic pool.

• Improve the functionality of bases (this has been brought up many times before). Heck, give bases a choice of a new contact that can be put inside it. Then a sg member can talk to him, and grab a unique mission for his team. Even put a mission door inside the base. I'd also like an interface inside bases for the auction house.

• Fix the cathedral of pain trial already and put it back in the game. Then sg's can finally do base raids again. (Although I'm not sure how pathing issues will work with all the stacking).

• Revamp the shadow shard. Turn it into another coop zone. Review & modify the existing TF's in the shard, they are already painfully long, boring and frustrating. Add a new contact or 2 with some new missions. And a new, fun, TF in the shard would be great.

• Fix the known bugs. I'm talking about bugs that have been known for years. Like the epic lag on the ITF, on the map with the computers. Fix the seer marino mission marker already. I'm sure there are others but by golly these 2 annoy me.

• Add a new villain epic archtype and a new hero archtype.

• Add a new mission arc to every level 50 contact in game.

• Add a new taskforce to cimerora (gasp) so there is another TF to do there other than ITF!

• Revamp mission maps. All the existing maps have a set layout, and most vets know the exact layout of them and where all the mobs will gather. Take these maps and make more variations, so that when you walk in, you are not sure what to expect. Eg. Office maps -- make some of the closed doors to be open with new hallways instead and existing hallways closed or going to a different location. You could be on ground floor, find what is normally a closed door open, go in there, up a flight of stairs, which then puts you on the next floor, down a narrow corridor with ambushes in side cul-de-sacs, down a flight of stairs to the ground floor, where you are in another hallway and can see through the office window to your team mates who are on the other side on ground floor. "Dude how did you get over there?". Hehe. Making the maps as random as possible and mixing up all the doorways with new halls/entry points would be great. (For me anyhow).

• Add new mission maps. Including new map types. Currently we have a bunch, including office, tech, arachnos, etc. It can't hurt to spice things up a little bit by adding a brand new type of map. Also adding a couple of new maps to the existing types would be wonderful.

• Modify mission mob spawn points. Add more spawn locations. Move some of the existing ones. Add more clever mob locations to up the challenge for missions (like the ambush corridor on the office map tile set).

• Modify enemy mob behaviour. Instead of being all huddled up like retarded, easy to kill sheep (which I refer to as sheeple). Whilst some farmers will probably hate this idea, it will liven things up a lot for me. Reduce the number of sheeple mobs on maps. Change them so more of the mobs move about their spawn point and are not clustered up like sitting ducks. Have 50% of the mobs patrol outwards further from their spawn point. After say, 5 minutes or so, have any (non-aggrod) mobs march across the map to patrol a new part of the map.

• Add more ambush triggers. Ambushes *can* make missions a lot more fun and challenging. I recommend it be done with care, and the use of some triggers.

• Add some new enemy groups to the game.

• Modify existing enemy groups, by adding 1 or 2 new critters to them.

This stuff is right off the top of my head. And it's stuff that I would enjoy

Awww phooey.
It's on youtube. "Girls just want to have fun" by Cyndi Lauper, the original version with the video clip. Made me lol and remember when I was a young gal :3

I've experienced this bug also, on the mission you mention Zaran.

I was doing flashback arcs and chose the arc "The Strange Case of Benjamin Decker".

The bug is specific to the exact same map and end room as what Leandro specified in his OP.

Here are some screenies of what I saw.
This room is very buggy graphics-wise.

I've never seen any ads for CoH/V on the internet. But then I don't read webcomics or regular comics for that matter. But it is nice to know that they do stick some ads up somewhere on the interwebs.

I certainly don't expect them to advertise on TV.
But they could at least advertise in something like computer magazines (I'm an aussie & read the australian pc mags and never seen anything about coh in them ever).
They could also advertise on their sibling games websites. Like Aion, guild wars, lineage, etc.
And they could also advertise in the computer game stores here (in australia). All I see in those stores are big banners about WoW and the latest FoTM game.
I have walked into EB Games (an aussie retailer where I originally bought CoH from years ago); and asked the sales clerk if they had the latest edition of the boxed game sometime last year, and they said "what is city of heroes?". .... They also don't sell game time cards for CoH here in australia at all. Not a single shop here will sell them. They got discontinued about 2 years ago. You can't even get them to order them in. So any kiddy who wants to play (by buying one with his pocket money) is unable to do so.

I'm wondering if marketing is following Eric Cartman's marketing example, from the episode when he bought his own theme park, and used the "You can't play here" method to make it popular. All in all, from what I've seen, it's looking pretty dismal marketing wise.

This is why I should not post when I am tired. *sigh*. I had run a couple of zones through my head and went 'yeah most of them have monsters' then generalised. My bad. Nit picker
Also, I find that the zones with other events in them (steel, talos, skyway etc) do not have monsters as a result. (Except for when babbage spawns related to the taskforce in skyway). I should have specified that :P

Yep.
Wrong. St Martial has an elite boss that roams about. The longbow ballista. Might not be a giant monster, but the devs found him worthy enough to give him mention on the same webpage as all the other monsters on the CoH website.
Also when you attack him, a lot of his friends appear from stealth.

That's nice. But they are in the same zone as PI. And they are huge monsters. And something to do. Also, when the Eden TF used to be popular, we would regularly be over in PI killing the monsters for the yummy inspirations to be used in the Eden TF.
I've also seen some interesting player behaviour in PI where certain tanks have taunted a monster over to portal corp to stomp about on castle.
Not that it is an event, but I always enjoy killing them.

Thanks. I already pointed out that some of the hazard zones don't have monsters.

Some zones do have mini events going on (but that depends on your definition of a mini event I guess).

For example:

• Steel canyon -- building fires. You can get 3 badges from these and temp power (fire extinguishers of various sizes).
• Skyway -- has a troll rave. With 2 badges. Lots of supatrolls and raving trolls. You can also collect a 3rd badge for defeating boss trolls.
• Talos & Independance port sometimes gets a visit from the ghost ship (big green glowing ship) with lots of ghosts that also give a badge.
• Kings row -- clockwork go insane and try to build their paladin. By insane I mean hundreds of the little suckers. Stop them and you'll get a badge.
• There are heaps of giant monsters in just about every zone red/blue side except for the starter zones (ie. none in galaxy, Atlas, mercy, port oakes). All the other non-hazard zones have a monster in them, and some of the hazard zones also have a monster.

There's plenty to find if you go looking.
If you get bored however after doing these just once, then adding new content isn't going to last long to feed your needs for that matter.

However, I do like the idea of more micro events. The more new stuff added the better, at least for those of us who do not get bored just by doing it once :P

Similar to what Dispari said...

I have been wishing for ages, that the devs would revamp Boomtown, and, turn it into a low-level coop zone.

They.... they have... a marketing department?
OMG... I've never seen a single advertisement for CoH. Ever.
I thought they were relying on word of mouth to get new people to play...

Here's an easy method if you want to visually identify them (without having to click on them).

Marcone Capo's are fashionably challenged, and only wear 2 different costumes. How very sad. However, only the marcone capo's wear these 2 specific costumes, so they are easy to spot from the other riff-raff.

If he is wearing a white suit and is bald: = marcone capo.
If he is wearing a black suit & white hat: = marcone capo.

Another tell tale sign is the leadership buff swirling around him (I think it might be assault).

Any blaster that goes FOOM, FREEEEEM, KABLAMM, WHOOOSHKAH or BLAMMO.

As for primaries & secondaries these are my blasters and why I find them fun:

• Rad/Fire: has many AoEs of doom :3
• Energy/Devices: all that KB strangely synergises with her devices (i set up bombs/trap them, then KB and they are dead)
• Archery/energy: because rain of arrows with BU + Power Boost + boost range = awesome
• Assault rifle/energy: as above, except with full auto
• Fire/ice: I superspeed into a group, ice patch flips em, chilling embrace slows em' down, build up + aim, drop rain of fire, then FOOM inferno.
• Elec/elec/elec: its a theme thing, plus its fun draining mobs dry of their blue bars.
• Sonic/mind: several cones and added control

I agree with I found it almost impossible to do (and I had respecced my 2nd build with superspeed, combat jumping, and slotted them both with level 50 enhancers and swift/hurdle and also slotted those along with sprint).
I even had random players put speed boost on me.

After many attempts and several temper tantrums, I still was unable to achieve gold (on the expert ski/luge tube slope thing).

Then, someone gave me some pointers:
When skiing the expert slope, don't constantly press the sideways/turn buttons, this slows you down. Instead, quickly tap them to turn then release and just continue going forward. The less you move about and the longer you stay on the ground, the faster you will go.

*edit* also, staying in the middle of the tube is best. Bump/touch the sides and you slow down.

Following this, I finally got the gold medal. /e victory.

Also, having inertial reduction (the kinetic jump buff) helps quite a bit.

Ehhh eee heee hehehe tee heeee hehehee
*must... not... retort... to... BaBs*

Ack! It must be done!!

Ok folks you heard it here first! BaBs is making a Hamidon MM set!
i.e. he said the words *ask* and *hamidon* and *mastermind* so there ya go!. (Yes, I am goofing about and in a larikin mood today. And very bored. And probably foolish.)

Here is the *almost* official new Hamidon Mastermind set, being developed by BaBs*, and to be released with issue 17!
(*soon as I figure out how to use mind control on BaBs)

----------------------------------------------

Note that all pets were modified to similar mastermind levels of HP, resistance, defense, regen and rank.

Also note, that there is no pet upgrade available to this set, other than the mutation injection.

Hamidon Summoning
Tier1 Power: Flora Summoning
You summon 4 minions of foliage to do your bidding. You have full mastermind control over these pets.
Bladegrass, Razorvine, Blackrose, and Deathblossom.



Tier2 Power: Summon Eminator
You summon one random eminator, at a fixed location. The recharge time is very long & cannot be reduced. The eminator is targetable and may be destroyed by your enemy. The eminator will be one of the 4 types:
Cairn, Fungi, Quartz, and, Tree of Life


Tier3 Power: Summon Deathcap
You summon 1 fungal pet to do your bidding. You have full mastermind control over this pet.
Deathcap


Tier4 Power: Summon Mitochondria
You randomly summon one mitochondria to assist you, which lasts for 3 minutes. The mito is unable to move and will remain at its spawned location. The mito cannot be controlled, but it will attack any nearby enemies. The recharge is very long & cannot be reduced. It will be any one of the 3 available mitos:

Mending, Antibodies, and Electrolyte.


Tier5 Power: Summon Underling Shards
You summon 4 underling shards, which will last for 3 minutes before disintegrating. They cannot be controlled, but they will attack any nearby enemies. The recharge time is very long & cannot be reduced.
This power will summon one of each:
Geode, Quartz, Sardonyx, and Guardian.


Tier6 Power: Summon Herders
You summon 2 Herders. They will spawn in hidden form (tree form) and if used carefully, can be used as a trap against your enemy.
They cannot be controlled, but they will attack any nearby enemies. They will only hang around for 5 minutes (similar to gang war). The recharge is very long.
Herder, and, hidden tree form.


Tier7 Power: Summon Swarm Plague
You call forth a large plague of swarms, 6 in total, which last for 5 minutes. (Similar to gang war). They cannot be controlled, but they will attack any nearby enemies. The recharge is very long & cannot be reduced.


Tier8 Power: Summon Greater Devoured
You call forth a greater devoured to do your bidding. You have full mastermind control over this pet only whilst it is in it's original form.


Tier9 Power: Mutation Injection
You inject your Greater Devoured pet with a special buff, the Mutation Injection, which temporarily mutates the pet into an advanced form.

The first injection will mutate the pet into an primary mutation, that will last a total of 3 minutes, with a cool down of 30 minutes.

Should this pet still be alive at the end of the 30 minutes, you may inject him again, for a secondary mutation, which also lasts 3 minutes, with a 30 minute cool down.

And there is a final tertiary mutation, should the pet still be alive, again with a duration of 3 minutes and 30 minute cool down.

If the pet dies at any stage, you may only resummon him in the initial Greater Devoured form and it will have lost all buffs, and have to wait for the mutation injection to be recharged before able to advance in state.

The 3 Mutation Injection forms are as follows:

Primary Mutation
Your pet mutates into the same genetic state as Terra


Secondary Mutation
Your pet mutates into the same genetic state as Pyriss.


Tertiary Mutation
You dangerously mutate your pet further, but one of the scientists in the lab mixed up your supply of chemicals, and you are not sure which end result it will be. Apparently there is a 50% chance of either of...:

Jurassik, or, Back Alley Brawler


-------------------------------

End note - nothing official here. Just silliness, and dreams.

And, now I'm a teeny bit paranoid... next time I log in game, and go to level/train up in Galaxy, that the trainer there might actually foot-stomp my toon into next week!

Ah yes, my bad there. This was my experience back before the change to the domination buff. Whilst this is my main villain toon, and my first 50, I don't play her all that much these days in grandville. She tends to only get involved in special events, the odd badge hunt, an ITF/cuda TF these days.
I haven't tested her ability against an arachnoid boss since the changes... but I'll test it when I'm back home next (currently on holidays).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lycanus Oh...and Swarms. HATE Swarms HATE HATE HATE

The first time I did that aura mission in creys folly, I thought "oh look at me on my rad defender I'll kick their tushes" and charged into a big group of 8 swarms. Bad move.
Sting x8. Ok killed 1. Ugh powers not recharged, k I'll wait.
OW! Ok now I'm half health, I'll use radiant aura.
Sting x7 (plus stack). WTF still recharging? Hah I'll use AM!
*AM*. Huh? Powers still recharging.
I ended up dieing, & learned a lesson about engaging large groups of swarms.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Red Valkyrja I hate Nemesis Comets. If I'm on my Kin/Arch, I think they can target me as soon as I enter the mission.. when they're on the 3rd floor. -.-

Yep! The nemesis critter I dislike most is the comet snipers. My empathy defender has a personal hatred of those mongrels.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Moderator 08 In the mid 20's red side, slag beasts are awful if you are teamed. Solo I'll fight them no problem, but teamed they are the PUG killer. Awful awful awful.

In one of my MA arcs I have slag golems set as an ambush. I had to modify the difficulty down, on an 8 man team it was insane. First you hear "boom boom boom thud" of the feet followed by many large rocks to the face, then all of a sudden you are surrounded by angry rock men and dead team mates.

Quote:

Originally Posted by InfamousBrad Three mobs' AoE debuff attacks have indefensibly long durations, in my opinion: the Night Widows' Smoke Grenade, the PPD SWAT Equalizer's Glue Grenade, and the PPD Ghost's Flashbang Grenade. Is there any good game mechanics reason to have a debuff last that long?

This I agree with. Especially on an 8 man team when several ppd ambushes arrive and there is so much glue going on that you are doomed. My TA controller is green with envy and wishes her glue arrow was as wonderful as the glue grenade.


Mobs I like:
I like the vanguard enemy just the way they are. They are much more deadly compared to other enemy groups, but that makes it fun for me. Instead of the usual "Sheeple" mission (mobs all grouped up like dumb, easy to kill sheep); vanguard step things up a notch, far from the standard easy mode of game play. Especially that map with the ambushes in it

Quote:

Originally Posted by NarfMann Also, Hitmen. Particularly Mook Hitmen.

I love mook hitmen, because they actually act like they have a bit of intelligence and not another sheeple. Whilst all the other gang members have gitted along like lil doggies into a herd being slaughtered, the hitmen sneak off, snipe, run, hide, sneak and snipe. It might take longer, but I like it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doc_Hornet Also, the rooftop snipers in Founders Fall. My poor level 30 blasters ... trying to unlock their origin-based stores...

Ah sniper joy. On my first encounter, I panicked, ran around a corner, right into the face of a pissy vampire. That didn't go so well I actually find snipers fun (founders, PI & creys). I personally like to hunt them down and exact revenge.


Fuzzy distant memories of stuff I hated when I first signed up:
Synapse, in one of the patron arcs. He wiped my small team. So we filled the team to try to beat him. Synapse earned a badge that day from killing us villains at least 10 times each (I swear). I remember being facedown on the floor, and seeing him go wizzing all over the map like a hyperactive 2 year old that had been granted super powers, superspeed, quickness, lightning reflexes, speed boost, AM, 4 galons of red cordial, 20 galons of espresso, 2 cans of red bull and a hundred pixie sticks. I remember someone using a wakie, moving over to me, the coast was clear, no mobs in line of sight, and being rezzed. Then this blue blurr wizzed past and all of a sudden the floor was in my face again. I'm betting Positron told Synapse, that if he (synapse) could kill us until he got his villain pwnage badge, that he'd give him more sweet sweet candy. I hope synapses teeth fell out from cavities. I ended up abandoning that mission.

The first time I fought (red side) crey Plasma and Cryo scientists, I could have sworn they were bosses. I remember the plasma gun melting the 8 man team I was on in what seemed like a 10 second team wipe.

Paragon Protector Elites - first time I foolishly thought "oh another PP". Ruh roh. 2 of them ran up to me, one went "FOOOOOM" and the other "KABLAMMO". There was melted lycra with my front teeth stuck in it hanging from the ceiling. WTF was that? Crey gave PPs nukes? Now I love doing missions with them in it, to see which nuke they will asplode with next, and how many on team will survive it


Fun ways I counter that which many here seem to hate!
Zombies and other retarded AI:
If you have caltrops, throw them down. Watch the zombies run up, stand on them, go "owie my tootsies they hurt", then the zombie turns around, runs away 2 feet, then turns around, comes back, stands on the caltrops, and repeats this silly cycle.
If you have confuse, use it on embalmed abominations. You now have a mini pet nuke.

CoT/Ruin Mages/SpectralDemons:
My preference is to confuse the spectral demon first, then its -acc toggle is working for ME. Confuse the ruin mage and you get a free bubble. And its always a ball with madness mages if you time it right, you get a free fortitude buff My order of desired mezzing goes Confuse, Hold, Stun, KB, immob (depends what AT I’m on). If the ruin mage gets earthquake down, make sure you have your jetpack on.

Tsoo sorcererors:
As above, same mez methods. Confuse the sorceror, you get free O2 boost and protection with hurricane. Pulling sorcs is easy, don't ever chase them (like SerialBeggar mentioned). Just hurt a minion, the sorc will pop right back, then blast/smack his lights out.