Captain-Electric
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Posts
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Joined
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Since I showed up on the steps of Atlas two years ago, Paragon City has become a valuable piece of my life. I'm a VIP not only because this the biggest, most interactive comic book universe ever created, but more importantly because of my own substantial creative investment. My roster of characters includes characters I created on paper 25 years ago, and all my characters have their own evolving stories, many of them intertwined, told through role-play, Mission Architect and many other means. I'm not much of a gamer outside City of Heroes, but I've always loved to create fantastic stories, and I've put a lot creative energy into this game. So when I'm playing, I'm not just playing City of Heroes, I'm also playing in a shared universe that is partly of my own creation.
It would be hard to leave all of that behind, but nothing lasts forever. A handful of my characters could still exist without City of Heroes, in some way or another--after all, they existed before City of Heroes. But most of my characters were born on Primal Earth. Their stories are etched into the fabric of that place. Most of them will succumb to whatever fate befalls the City of Heroes universe. But I will be there, watching. -
Quote:Thanks.Originally Posted by NuclearToast
I think I saw the window names listed on ParagonWiki. It's down right now (teh powtz), but check there once it's back up.
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An Android app would make my real-life day job so much more pleasant.
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I was just playing around with the idea behind Zombie Man's slash command tip and discovered how to re-size separate, INDIVIDUAL power trays:
The syntax is this:
/windowscale <string> <float>
Which basically means that if you type this:
/windowscale Tray1 1.2
You'll get a slightly enlarged tray of buttons to mash for Tray 1. I'm talking about separate trays that are littered around your screen, not the default power tray window at the bottom right of your screen.
(What this REALLY means is that if you knew each UI window's name ("string"), you could customize any individual element. I don't know where to find that information. I got lucky on my first try by typing "Tray1"...for all I knew it was going to be something weird like Power_Tray_1.) -
Quote:The game is full of people to have potentially rewarding conversations with, but seriously, don't expect this from just anyone with a game account and a keyboard. Also realize, to that guy, you might have come off as the troll, based on your persistence alone. Find some good people to play with on a regular basis, and absolutely leave your feelings at the door when you enter any random pick up group. You have no idea who those people are, or how much compassion they have for the average Joe. I believe in the inherent good in many people, but some people in this world just aren't reasonable. The moment you let strangers know their behavior has affected your mood, they'll come out of the woodwork to drag you down even further. Hey, it's the Internet. They may even think they're the ones in the right. You can't win that game, so don't play it. That reality applies to these forums, too.Originally Posted by DocBenway
I was simply trying to communicate in a respectable manner with someone, and it all went to hell.
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Quote:You seem to have accumulated a crowd of tomato-throwers, but for what it's worth, I mostly agree with this; only difference is, I believe the puzzle is still there. For a couple of my oddest examples, I've made sacrifices to have a tough-and-rumble archery defender that can put up a decent fight in melee range, and I even have a controller that taunts and tanks by soaking up damage through a strange combination of power picks and enhancement slots. They might seem gimped to anyone who wasn't aware how to exploit their greatest strengths.Originally Posted by RemusShepherd
Fair enough. Here are some simple strategies against different enemy groups, if we were fighting the old way:
Hellions, Skuls -- Focus fire on the bosses or they will wreck you. Minions and Lts are ignorable, but if you're solo and defense based take out the ones with def-reducing attacks.
Clockwork -- Manage the teslas first of all; either get their aggro on the tank or kill them quick. Save AoEs for after bosses' deaths to sweep away gears. Teammates with recovery boosting powers are valuable here.
Circle of Thorns -- For most levels, the Lts are the dangerous ones. Air and earth mages can screw up a team's squishies, while the Lt ghosts do massive damage and accuracy drains. Focus fire on those Lts. An exception is the Ruin Mage, especially at low level. Wait until he drops an earthquake then pull him to a spot away from it and kill him.
The Council -- Focus fire on bosses. Secondary targets are the riflemen, who have massive slows and def-reducing attacks.
Freakshow -- Anything with 'shock' in its name has sleep and/or stuns; focus fire on them. Squishies should not fight bosses in close range. If possible fight from the air, as Freakshow have few ranged attacks although some of them fly.
Sky Raiders -- First target are the engineers, who create shield drones. Bosses can be extremely dangerous and durable, and most of them explode on death. Be ready to heal meleers right after a boss goes down, and squishies should fight at range.
Nemesis -- Lts use vengeance on death, so kill minions and bosses first and avoid using AoE damage. Warhulks and jaegers will explode on death.
Devouring Earth -- Park the bosses near a tank and ignore them. Focus on the Lts, who spawn eminators, and the fungoids who toss sleeps.
This is not secret knowledge. None of you reading this are idiots -- you know all of the above tactics already. But I don't see players doing any of that. What I see is everyone fighting the 'new' way:
Hellions, Skuls -- Pop a purple. Zerg.
Clockwork -- Pop a purple. Zerg.
Circle of Thorns -- Pop a purple. Zerg.
The Council -- Pop a purple. Zerg.
Freakshow -- Pop a purple. Zerg.
Sky Raiders -- Pop a purple. Zerg.
Nemesis -- Pop a purple. Zerg.
Devouring Earth -- Pop a purple. Zerg.
Maybe it's because I've lost my SG and I mostly team with PUGs these days. Maybe I'm just playing with idiots. But there sure seems to be a lot more idiots than there used to be, and the game is encouraging them to act that way.
Some people just look up builds, yes. But for some people like myself, building a character can be an exercise in creativity, and it takes strategy and thought to make a character build that's unique and functional. Or at least it used to.
I'll give you an example. My controller 'Fernguard' is a Plant/TA. I designed her as a scraptroller, focusing mostly on holds and melee attacks, and with high defenses.
In order to pack the Fitness pool, Flying pool (for flight and Air superiority), and Fighting pool into her build, I had to make sacrifices. I didn't take spirit tree and a few of her secondary arrow debuffs. But in return I had a character that did good damage in melee (thanks to containment), had maxed slash/lethal resistance, and a fair amount of defense.
Then the travel powers were given with no prerequisite, and stamina became inherent.
Suddenly I had four additional power choices. I kept air superiority because it fit my concept. But I was forced to take the powers I had skipped from my primary and secondary. (My only other option was to take another power pool that I couldn't slot, which seemed worse than useless.)
What did all the other controllers who already had their primary and secondary powers take with their four extra powers? Air superiority and the fighting pool.
So now Fernguard has a build that's almost identical to every other controller with her powerset, and pretty similar to every other controller no matter what set they are. And I still call her a scraptroller, because...why? Nostalgia?
By giving us more power slots but no new power options (such as new power pools), the devs removed consequential choice from character building. All characters were driven toward the same standardized power selections. There are no other options. And thus creativity was no longer necessary or desirable in character design. Go look up a build on the forums; it's as good as anything else.
Nobody finds this sad, other than me? Nobody misses -- or even remembers -- when we used to apply intelligence and logic to figuring out the puzzles of this game system?
Maybe everyone like me has already left?
That being said, I won't complain if the devs give us more puzzle pieces to play with.
As for combat strategies, I think you'd be assuming A LOT to say that everybody knows those things in the era of Issue 21. On my teams I take it slow sometimes and help educate people on strategies, and I generally get thanked for it. -
This thread is awesome. Two years in and I didn't know about any of this stuff.
Although, getting the menu out of the way in time has never been a problem, because I always increase the sensitivity of my mouse (in games and in Windows) to an insane amount. It took some getting used to but has provided much relief to my wrist and also improved combat. Still, I'll be making the window smaller just for the sake of tinkering. -
FOR YOUR INFORMATION, I happen to have a couple of grim, brooding, serious-face nocturnal dark and mysterious man-of-action vigilantes who are as giddy as schoolgirls on the inside right now.
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Quote:Correct (and a heroic thing to say!). He might have thought you were asking him to fix your problem for you, when you could have easily right-clicked and passed the star.Originally Posted by DocBenway
This I can take full responsibility for.
That being said however, the league leader's response was WAY out of line, and you were right to petition him. Unfamiliarity with all of the game's nuances is not a crime. Especially with the influx of new and returning players, there's no reason to expect everybody on your team to understand all (or even any) of the mechanics. But the moment you put your feelings on your sleeve, you were putting yourself out there for the trolls.
If you were on most of the teams I've ran with on Virtue, you likely would have gotten a helpful, non-condescending explanation of the way teams work. -
Reading this thread makes me so glad I've gotten to know some people who are regular teammates. My first couple of runs through the haunted house, we took our time, enjoyed the sights, spoke with all the click-able NPCs (there are several), explored the graveyards outside the house, found the side mission, heck we even stopped to talk about the creepy art hanging on the walls. When the Abomination came, we all had each others backs, worked together as a team, and got the badge.
My third run through was on a random PUG. Good grief, these guys were acting like they had ants in their pants! They were in such a rush to get to the end, they simply ran past most of the zombies throughout the house. I felt sure this was because they'd done the haunted house many times, but nope--when asked, it was the first time for two of them! Later on, it dawned on me that this is probably the way most people play City of Heroes: missing 90 percent of the game in their mad rush to "experience" the game. When the Abomination came, it was everyone for themselves. When I lay defeated on the ground, unable to put holds on the GM or defend my team, someone actually typed, "Don't worry, I can solo this." The GM then proceeded to stomp him flat. Over and over. Needless to say, the PUG did not get the badge.
Anyway, for my fourth run through the haunted house, I waited until a few of my regular teammates were back around.
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I was surprised to hear the new opening theme for a really weird reason. About a year and a half ago (6 months after I'd started playing), one of my characters exited a mission--a turning point in an epic story arc--onto a ledge overlooking the devastation of Eastgate at sunset. Suddenly, music leaped into my head, a fairly epic composition of my own imagining (not a regular occurrence in my case). The music stuck in my brain, and became a kind of "theme song" for that character and a few others. I couldn't help it: during important moments, like a big reveal in a story arc, I'd imagine hearing it.
Until Issue 21, when I didn't have to imagine. Now, don't get me wrong, it's not the exact same score. There's a dramatic, high pitched crescendo in my imaginary theme that lends a "things just got really serious" tone, and differs significantly. The Jason Graves theme is so incredibly close, but his crescendo is more "Yes, THIS is your AWESOME CHARACTER ROSTER" (if you time it just right). Still, I had to pick my jaw up off the keyboard when I heard it for the first time. It's like my musical theme's interdimensional doppelganger just showed up with Issue 21.
I've been wanting to tell someone that. Seemed like the right thread.
Quote:Also, nice name there. Off-topic but, Energy Man was the first name of Captain-Electric when I created the character on paper for the first time as a child, 25 years ago.Originally Posted by Energyman
I agree with this. Although a part of me, probably the 7 year vet part, misses the old music too. Love the new stuff though.
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Quote:Wow, now that you mention it...yeah.Originally Posted by Baler
Pretty sure the 99 zombie counter doesn't start until you talk to Doc Kane for the final time.
*Pauses, thinking*
Wow, my regular teammates really are just that good.
Thanks, yeah, I plan to use it. All the same, it's not like a griefer should be able to say, "It's your fault I'm griefing you, you should have visited Null the Gull!" Although I'm sure it'll happen.Quote:Originally Posted by Anomynous
On a side note, you can permanently prevent the speed component of speed boost by talking to "Null the Gull" in Pocket D (on top of the truck in the villain-side alcove). He can also remove a couple of other effects - not sure if the ice armor graphic is one of 'em, though.
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Quote:Exactly. There are two kinds of people who play this game. Those who look to City of Heroes for entertainment, and those who entertain themselves by carving their own universe into the game. This is the only MMORPG where that's possible to a great extent, so if you're ever gonna do it, do it here.Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
City of Heroes is, at the end of the day, a fantasy. It's an action figure come to life, and an action figure of your own making. Maybe I never grew out of the mental age of five, but I can't think of anything more I want out of life
Socially speaking, patience is a virtue. Always remember that most people aren't "in the world" at any given time, they're in missions and trials and super group bases. Over the past two years, I've built an extremely high-quality global friend list that ensures I'll see a familiar name just about any time I log on. I spend very little time on the forums. 90 percent of the names on my global list are roleplayers, and all of them are great people. Rarely do I join PUGs anymore. -
Quote:Correct, it is harassment and can be reported as such. When this happened to me last week, I sent a short, quick petition (Menu > Support > Conduct and Harassment) after a polite request to the griefer achieved nothing. A GM warded him off within about two or three minutes, which likely resulted in a mark on the player's account.Originally Posted by Bad_Influence
I am aware this is a group buff nowadays, but this was out and out griefing.
I wish there was a "Cancel for good" option beneath "cancel" for ice shields and speed boosts. The defense bonuses and recharge rates don't bother me, but the ice effect and speedier movement often get in the way. -
Sir, I've never rage-quit a team, but I must say, now I know under what circumstances I would happily do so. So, don't you feel bad at all. About the only thing I would have done differently is to find something more enjoyable to do for a few minutes before I logged out--to wash the bad taste out of my mouth. I also would have wisecracked before leaving the team. And I mean, really laid the smacktalk down. Something punny. Something to let that ******* know that, dammit, I might not be as DPS as him, but I could shoot out bad one-liners faster than he could ever hope to in his wildest dreams!!! Yeah.
But anyway. I've done two haunted house runs so far. The team got their 99 zombies badge both times. And we were on Virtue. A straight-up, grammatically correct, long-winded RP team. What did we do different? We had a head start, we took out all the zombies throughout the house, basement and crypt. And we weren't a PUG. We were familiar with each other and knew mostly what to expect from each other. -
Congratulations!
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People are struggling with this? I got it on my first run last night, and my team was RPing through the whole thing! We were two blasters, a melee character and a defender (I think). Once we had ol' Abomination whittled down two-thirds or so, me (a blaster) and another teammate (melee) broke away to fight zombies in the outlying graveyards while the other two kept the big guy occupied. Maybe we just got lucky? I haven't had time to run it again yet. I had my ghost-slaying axe out, that might have given us an edge, I don't know.
Edit: Just remembered, I was also giving out Dimension Drops of power and vitality acquired from this year's Valentine's Day event. Figured it was a special enough occasion.
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I have never farmed or power leveled.
Well, except these two times:
A PUG I joined once ended up farming in AE. I could tell the team was enjoying themselves, but I felt like I was robbing myself of content, which I enjoy playing. So I quit the team and recreated my character. I didn't spit on the team on my way out, I simply realized it wasn't for me.
The second time was last week. I did the DfB trial for the first time, and was thoroughly entertained by the bells and whistles. But I walked away from it a bit shocked. I had seen a farm before. I knew what one looked like. And now I'd seen another...created by none other than PARAGON STUDIOS!
I really liked the environmental design (the fire traps and malfunctioning Rikti bombs should actually do damage though). The battle with the Hydra heads at the end was pure awesome. And I liked the stat bonuses, but I flew through so many levels so quickly, it was pure insanity.
Do I think that's a bad thing? For the game? I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. Bad for me, evidently. Since then, I've spoken with a couple new players about all the years worth of content they're skipping for the tiny tip of the iceberg called the endgame. I'm happy to report that they're both running new characters a bit slower now, enjoying the journey that is City of Heroes.
I can see myself doing the DfB trial again, under certain conditions, such as possibly disabling my XP gain after the first run through for the stat bonuses. -
Thanks, Electric-Knight! I had just logged out for bed time when I saw your thread. Logged back in IMMEDIATELY and bought the bundle...and then spent two hours in Icon. Good thing I'm scheduled to go into work late tomorrow.
Worth every Paragon Point. This is an AWESOME set.
P.S. I went against the grain with the Medusa head, pairing it with the organic face (a smooth female face with luminescent eyes) and phoenix mask, wearing dark, form-fitting Valkyrie armor, for a seductive-yet-terrifying creature. -
I don't use Netflix but Captain America will be up on Amazon In-Demand on the 25th! Will probably be available on other services like Netflix and iTunes too I guess.
Quote:I hoorbed that show, its air sounds brought feelings of excitement to me.Originally Posted by Veritech
Feel the same about the newest Spider-Man cartoon. The merger ended up killing that and im still torqued about it.
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Quote:Fixed that for you.Originally Posted by Venture
RPG worlds do not and can not run on the same principles as commercial comic books -- especially when said principles don't work all that well for the comic books, for me.
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Quote:Originally Posted by Lazarillo
So basically it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff?
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Quote:My thoughts exactly, I never considered each of my characters to be experiencing the same events like some kind of shared cosmic Groundhog Day. A character born from one of Crey's experimental programs might know all about Crey from level one. For that character, big "reveal" arcs might serve to give him still-deeper information on the conspiracy he already knew to exist in some form.Originally Posted by RosaQuartz
I don't think the content and reveals need to be linear. I just assume that my characters are like Batman or Wolverine... appearing in about five or six different comic books at a time, each loosely tied to the same continuity, but not necessarily knowing all of the stuff at the same time.
There's a point where we (as players) should ask ourselves if we're taking things way more seriously than the comic book genre would ever take itself. -
Quote:This works for me and it doesn't work for me (yes, I mean that simultaneously!). Depends on what character I'm playing. For my own sanity, my roster of characters exists along a floating timeline, i.e. a time-line where people and events are like bobbles floating down a stream (a time-stream!), in which some bobbles are heavier or lighter--slower or quicker--than others. This isn't an extreme difference from a timeline where every person and event is fixed upon the flow of time; it's just different enough to allow a more lighthearted approach to in-character storytelling.Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
I agree with this completely. The game's storyline might change in real time, but so far it seems like this is being handled like changes in the timeline. For instance, Galaxy City was fine yesterday, it's destroyed today, but this didn't just "happen." According to silos, there was a timeline where this never happened at all, and the Shivans instead landed in Atlas Park, so the game's plot changed, but as a result of someone tampering with the timeline.
This kind of explanation is the ultimate saving throw. It allows us to have our basic timeline expand as the player advances in level, but it still leaves the door open for major changes to happen that affect the low levels as a result of events taking place in the later levels. Someone messed with the timeline, so what's happening at levels 1-5 isn't a direct result of what happens in level 45-50, but instead the whole 1-50 timeline has shifted so that something which was supposed to happen later happened earlier, but time progression with levels remains the same.
It's an idea so awesome I'm ashamed I didn't think of it, myself. This is the perfect workaround, and at the same time it leaves no excuse to NOT have the level-based timeline consistent.
This allows me to play as if my level 50 tank was fighting crime in Paragon years before my Street Justice scrapper started, at the same time allowing for the events in Galaxy City to be happening right now for both of them. How so? Here's the SERAPH explanation. The Galaxy city event represents a really big bobble, heavy enough to create a water-well or tidal-pool in the time-stream, one that is drawing other bobbles closer to it, whether from behind or in front, it doesn't matter.
And, really, if you listen to most players in the game, particularly role-players, they seem to be employing this method anyway, if subconsciously. I'm merely slapping a rationalization on it. But, truth be told, it wasn't my idea in the first place. (Anybody who has been reading comics for a while is already in the know. )
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Quote:Agreed. But I'm not really sure what Venture is advocating for. In a "quest-based" online game, the only way to present the story in an intimate context for individuals--and at the same time include everyone in the story--is to tie the story to the progression of the character. This is no small matter for a game about SUPER heroes and villains.Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
No, we should revive it and stop pretending it's dead. The storyline needs to progress with level progression.
In a real-time world, few missions can be of much consequence; few heroes or villains can be of much consequence; and the story exists in an almost entirely separate context from what most players experience inside the game. I've played MMORPGs where the only way to experience ANY historical event was to be there at a particular date and time. The first MMORPG ever created is still operating under this principle, and for small parties of adventurers, it still sucks fifteen years later. Imagine if Temblor and Fusionette's arc, or the jaw-dropping "reveal" arcs for the Circle of Thorns or Rikti--imagine if those arcs could only be done once, not by your small team of world-saving heroes, but by everyone on the server who showed up to play.
People who love zone events might be drooling at that scenario, but keep in mind that if such events were the only way to progress the story, there would barely be any story to tell. Long months would pass between events during times when the dev team's priorities shifted. When an Earth-shattering event finally came to pass, your class-A super celebrity Tank couldn't save the Earth by himself, or with a few members of his super group; and not only because thousands of other heroes got the memo that day, but because you had to go to work IRL. Contrast this with your favorite character, who might have saved his neighborhood, or even the city (or even the world) a handful of times this week.