Kitsune9tails

Hi Venture!

Thank you for reviewing Kiss Hello Goodbye, I always find your reviews interesting, entertaining and insightful, even when I don't agree.

Just for perspective, I want to mention a couple of points here; our readers can take them as they will.

- I know people will either love or hate the Chandler Pastiche; sorry you hate it.

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You get a license plate for a truck that left just before you arrived, which Eden is able to track for you, though I have no idea why anyone she could conceivably have reasonably turned to as an investigator would need her help to run down a license plate number.


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I thought I'd put that in, since as the architect, I have no idea whether the character you choose to run in the mission can do that sort of thing. I thought it was better to say she did it than to tell the player their character did something out of their skill range. Besides, the Dame actually chooses the player to use as a patsy, not for their investigative skills.

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The arc is a Mary Sue story that plays the character for a sap and has poor game play to boot.

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It's not actually intended as a Mary Sue...the Dame's Mind Control is just there to justify the mind-befuddling powers that the Dame character nearly always has in Noir/Hardboiled stories (in which she is usually playing the protagonist for a sap). I will back her down from an AV so the PToDs won't be such PitAs.

Note that the arc is written so that you do see through her ruse and have a chance to bring her to justice.

As far as gameplay, I figured that Gorilla (like most Custom Critters) would be a pushover for some builds and extremely tough for others, hence he is optional and as you noted, amply warned about. When testing the arc, I was able to complete the objectives while running from him on squishy toons, which is a kind o gameplay I occaisionally find refreshing: trying to accomplish a goal while some Implacable Man is in pursuit.

I can see how it wasn't your cup of tea; perhaps the next one will be more to your liking.

While we are at it, I'd like to make a poke at the UI guys for a related request:

A square, tailless Narration box for things your character is not saying or doing: /narrate Meanwhile...

An oval Thought Balloon box for things your character is thinking: /thinks Is she reading my mind?

Exactly. Having an issue that was 'just bug' fixes would result in the Bug team doing the same work they always do, and the Features Team getting a big paid vacation.

I suppose you could retask the features people to work on bugs, but then you'd lose time while they familiarized themselves with the process.

Thank you, thank you, thank you very much for you review. You definitely pointed out some things for me to clear up, and I certainly appreciate your choice not to give away all of the twists.

I'm not going to give a bigf itemized counter-critique: I am happy to get the 4 stars and I can't really fault where you caught me out in most places. I'm not sure what to do about Old Fossil's dialogue in Mission 4: that will take some thinking.

As far as the [big bad] getting away; well all I can say is, it made sense for the character and the story, and they are entirely catchable if you are ready for it. Of course, you aren't necessarily supposed to be ready for it.

I am actually a fan of failable missions, but I can understand if others aren't.

All in all, thanks for the review, and as soon as I can afford it I will be buying more slots to hopefully do some more stories in various styles.

Apt parallel, no?

You may not need the protection that the Arbiter title gives, but why turn it down?

Besides, by definition, if Recluse declares you are an Arbiter, you are such henceforth, even if you deny it yourself. It's like Emperor Caligula making his horse a Roman Senator.

I just wish the Arbiter badge carried an 'Aura of Repect' buff that affected Arachnos minions and an extra costume slot.

Please feel free to subject any of the arcs in my sig to The Treatment.

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It's not licensed. NCsoft bought it.

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I stand corrected.

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So why argue in favour of signature characters as AVs when it's (supposedly) no skin off your neck either way?


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I don't consider myself to be arguing one way or the other. I'm just expressing my opinions and trying to understand those of others.

I agree with your basic premises a lot; just usually not with the extremes to which you wish to go or the way in which you express your ideas.

In this case, although I don't have a problem with AVs existing or being signature characters, I also want to encourage the Devs to continue to seek new ways of making uber encounters and high level content fun.

A lot of things are the way they are because of circumstances: the Devs would probably like to redo a lot of old content with a unified (dare I say it?) vision in mind, but it's unlikely to be prioritized over all-new shinies to entrance new and old players alike.

So I don't see the Devs going back to set, say Back Alley Brawler in stone as a Batman-level opponent (level 15 or so EB) and rewriting all the missions he's in and also coming up with new mechanincs specifically so your Tanker won't feel outclassed when facing him solo on Invincible. Especially when talking to an npc can make him an EB just like you want: at that point you are not arguing in favor of more content for yourself, you are arguing in favor of denying a certain experience to other players.

Especially not now that anyone who wants that, can do it in the MA (although they would have to cobble together their own BAB lookalike critter).

But I do want to explore what makes players feel 'super' and how the Devs can perceive that and tap into it to make the game better for everyone.

There definitely should be more foe teams out there.

The Devs are already making the first step in the direction of giving villains more respect in the writing.

I am totallly in favor of more gadget fights.

These, I beleive are all acheivable in a time frame of months, rather than the years it would take to excise AVs from the game seamlessly, even if the Devs wanted to.

I am totally on your side when it comes to future game content having better presentation, a better feeling of progression, and better writing when it comes to whay a character is an EB as opposed to an AV.

I also agree that if there are ATs, or powerset combinations, that basolutely cannot slo an even level AV regardless of purplitude or slotting/skill/patience/perseverance, then that should be addressed. But I don't think that's actually the case.

Of course, AVs are team content (intended for 6 players IIRC), so the Devs are as likely to address that by buffing AVs as by buffing a powerset, but that's a separate fight.

Just out of curiosity: any of the responders in this thread made any MA Arcs? If so, have they already, or do they plan on, making any with Arch Villains?

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But honestly if this power scaling thing is so acceptable, why not reverse it? Have a mission or two where you fight the entire freedom phalanx and they're all lieutenants, because in this issue of City of Heroes you're the star? Obviously that'd be ridiculous and not exceptionally fun, but that's pretty much how some people such as myself see the current AV mechanic.

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Actually, that would ROCK for a level 50 mission.

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Honestly if they *want* to give story reasons why the Freedom Phalanx is so much better than everyone else so be it, but as I have asked several times already: What does that accomplish?

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What does it accomplish for Superman to be (presumably) on a higher tier of power than anyone else can reach in DCUO? It's just a byproduct of his concept and his history (DCUO will go on to make me eat my words by making Kandorians and Daxamites player races).

Manticore likely conceived of this universe (along with Rick Dakan and Jack Emmert, I think) to feel like a long-established hero universe just like DC and Marvel. As such there are powerful established icons like Captain Marvel/Statesman or Recluse/Doom. They are conceptually team content from the ground up.

Now I agree that not everyone who is an icon in this world needs that status. I can easily see Manticore and Back Alley Brawler for instance, being EBs or even topping out before level 50. Heck, if Batman were in this game, he should be outclassed by a Gaardvord in terms of physical combat: I'm sure any of them could take Killer Croc.

But in any case, I'm sure there are people in the game (out of 150k, pprobably every conceivable opinion is reflected) whose experience would be diminished if they felt like the signature hero of the universe were just some chump they could easily take down solo. That's actually beside the point, kind of.

The point is YOU don't like it. Even if every one of the other 150,000 people were united in one voice against you, you'd still not like the fact that you are overshadowed by Statesman. That's fine.

MY point is:
1) There is always going to be a critter that has bigger numbers than you; they are NEEDED.

2) Since those are going to exist, there is no reason to exclude the Signature Heroes from that status UNLESS doing so would improve the game significantly. I have yet to be convinced that this is the case.

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It's hard to find any sense of accomplishment in winning over adversity that conceptually has no reason to be there,

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The issue here is that conceptually, in the minds of the creators of the game, that adversity DOES have a reason to be there (presumably).

The fact that you can write a bio justifying your power levels as well or better than they can (for instance) has nothing to do with the fact that the Phalanx are designed to be uberly powerful numerically to a level 50; they created the concepts, so they get to define them.

They may not define them to your personal satisfaction, but in a field of 150,000 players, any opinion is likely to be in the minority.

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1: and 2: Again, why should the developers cater to (referring back to my anecdote) the guy who chooses to leverage an advantage the developers didn't intend to give him to gain a reward higher than everyone else just because he made that choice?

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I do not think the developers should reward exploiting (small e), which is what this would be.

But I do think that someone who went out and collected SOs should be rewarded with better performance, and consequently be able to solo content, that someone who doesn't bother should. I am a casual player myself, and If I don't take time to collect IOs or HOs or SHOEs, I should not be able to complete 100% of the content in this game on the hardest difficulty.

It's one thing to say, "I don't want to feel outclassed and disrespected by the game content" and another to say, "no one should be able to face any challenge I cannot face, despite any disparities in our builds, playstyles, or skill".

The same principle applies to reading the forums for build advice, learning by trial and error, or even calling for help from total strangers.

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Your ill/rad Controller that you put hundreds of hours into and spent 3 billion inf on for rare IOs, doesn't deserve to be able to tackle an AV that my WP/SS Tanker, who I've put hundreds of hours into and spent 3 billion inf on rare IOs for can't defeat, just becuase developers like to crap on S/L damage and because debuffs are way more potent than they really should be.


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Your Tanker may not be able to take on THAT Archvillain, but there should be some Archvillains she can take IF SHE SPECIFICALLY BUILDS FOR FIGHTING ARCHVILLAINS. The freedom you have to build to be able to take an Arch foe also means that you can build to NOT be able to take on big hard targets because you chose to specialize elsewhere, like aggro management and meat shieldery.

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If min/maxers are just seeking a challenge, why don't they challenge themselves with running arcs with the added difficulty settings like being debuffed and having the enemies buffed? Or having their enhancers deactivated? I'm sure with those settings, EBs would become as challenging as AVs.

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Some do. But some want to face something that challenges even their best stuff.

I beleive there should be content in the game that challenges the very best AT their very best, even though that means I personally will never be able to solo that content.

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Recluse and States have no reason to dwarf players in power levels.


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Why not? Or more precisely, should there be ANY inidividual foes in the game that are even conceptually team content, even if they happen to normally possess a human form? If there are any, then why not States and Recluse?

Thanos, Doom, and Magneto are often portrayed as being 'team content' for the best of the best, including the Fantastic Four, X-Men, and Avengers. I don't see that being out of place here.

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Either every AT and combo gets a fair shot at soloing an AV, or no one should.

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I beleive every AT and powerset combo should have a fair shot at soloiing an even-level Archfoe. I do NOT beleive they should all have a fair shot at soloing EVERY even level Archfoe.

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Its simply that designing a smarter AI is hard.

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IMHO (IANAP, Standard code rant) it's easy to make smarter AI: it's just not easy to make BETTER AI. They are not the same thing.

It would be easy (someone alluded to EQ) to add:

- healing aggro.
-To have the foes concentrate fire on the opponent in range with the lowest hp.
- to have foes react to 'holes' in PC defenses or weaknesses
- foes that aggro other groups while fleeing
- foes that call more groups
- hot doors
- foes that use Teleport Other, or Taunt

Many of these have come up before, and for each player that wants one of these in the game, there are three that shout "No! Don't!"

Heck, just give all of the enemies a 200' radius perception range like the players have for one day and see the chaos that brings.

There are a lot of clever AI tricks I see in this game and no other:

- Tsoo Sorcerers
- The way Vahzilok become smarter around their handlers
- General critter pathing (not nearly perfect, but far better than in any other game I've seen, including WoW, AO, and others)

Problem is, players don't really want 'smarter' foes, they want 'more interesting' ones. Which is subjective and often exploitable.

That's why I think one solution is to have some encounters/foes that are labeled 'for OCD crack monkeys only', rather than to have bland content literally anyone can solo.

...I just realized that Pohsyb is Solid Snake.

Grats, Programmer-in-a-box!

There are people in this game who want to min/max their character and still be pushed to their limits.

There are also people who want to play casually, but at their peak, feel equal to the signature characters.

It's not going to be easy, and it may not be possible, to satisfy both camps with the same content. That's one reason there is are reputation contacts, which is an innovative compromise.

I do NOT think that an empath/electric with randomly chosen powers, run by a 13 year old casual player for whom this is their first MMO, who has only SOs, who never reads guides/seeks advice/visits the forums and whose powers and slotting were literally randomly chosen, should be able to solo the ITF on max difficulty by "face rolling". They should, however, be able to complete 80%+ of the solo content given out by their own Contacts on Heroic without faceplanting 5 times per mission.

By the same token, there should be challenges that kill Buffer Overrun 6/10 tries (if attempted at max difficulty), and which forces them to stop and think and devise tactics.

No matter what, if you are attempting to please both camps, yu are going to have characters in the game who vastly outclass the best level 50s. I don't think the game's writers (which now includes the players) should be barred from writing stories where the PCs are challenged to overcome being outclassed by the equivalents of Thanos or Darkseid.

And it doesn't bother me personally if the game canon and mechanics put Statesman and Recluse on the level of Superman and Thanos while I can 'only' aspire to be Wonder Woman or Storm.

Can we all agree that:

1: Encounters intended to be challenges for OCD minmaxers should be labelled as such.

2: Such encounters should exist.

3: It's okay for at least Statesman and Recluse, if not their sidekicks and pals, to be above the level that PCs can reach, and on the same level as P.L.O.T device characters like Superman or Thanos.

4: Casual players should be able to solo 80%+ of content their Contacts give them on heroic without faceplanting 5 times per mission if they at least stay awake at the keyboard.

5: The game should have more time invested in making challenging content more chjallenging in variety of ways other than the 'bag of hit points' method.

I'd like to present some of my own mental shorthand and get some reactions, if I may, translated using Marvel icons for clarity:

Note that the following indicates combat power level, not necessarily style, theme or mood.

Level indicates the general 'league' a character might be in:

Levels 1-10: Daredevil, Kingpin (Batman)
Levels 11-20: Spider-Man, Venom
Levels 21-30: The Thing, a Sentinel
Levels 31-40: Iron Man, Iron Monger
Levels 41-50: Hulk, Abomination
Levels 51+ : Silver Surfer, Thanos (Superman)

Whereas Rank indicates the importance or grandeur of a specific encounter...

Underlings: Fantastic Four vs hordes of mole men
Minions: X-Men vs the Brood
Lieutenants: X-Men vs Mutant Force/Resistants
Bosses: Avengers vs Masters of Evil
Elite Bosses: X-Men vs Sentinels
PvP: Avengers vs Defenders
Arch Villains/Monsters: X-Men vs Magneto
Giant Monsters: Avengers vs Red Ronin

When Players enter the picture, you have to remember that the player is the author of his character's story and there is no Editor to rein them in. They stand apart from this hierarchy. The world may be consistent (I'm not saying it is), but the it's up to the players to rationalize how they fit in, and they can choose not to.

It's just a quirk of the CoX world that an unpowered martial artist can eventually become skilled enough to hit hard enough to threaten the Hulk (see Dragon Ball or nearly any shonen anime, or DC's Karate Kid). If you don't hold with that, then don't level one above 10.

Of course any list such as the above is going to have plenty of troublesome characters: I'm not sure where Storm or Professor X fits, since they are incredibly powerful but about as vulnerable as a normal person.

Again, a good shorthand for how I think a max level player character is would be the Sub-Mariner or Thor: extremely powerful, but still usually going to call for help against Magneto or Thanos.

Presentation is key, but I don't think I can get behind the idea that Arch status is somehow tied to the size of your character model. Not in a Superhero game.

I think it's on the player-as-author to explain why their character is NOT Arch status (or to ignore the question), because there is no way to do otherwise without having the Devs come up with some kind of unenfrorceable rule about character bios.

I would not object to consistency with how a single character is portrayed, similar to how you describe it. I just don't think that there should be some rule that the Devs have to follow stating that you have to have a larger than Huge model to be Arch status.

The AV/EB code was written for player and dev convenience. Now players who want to solo Sister Psyche but can't handle her as a AV can take her as an EB (if she scales down, I'm not sure). There are other ways of handling that, and I'm sure some will be explored as story branching tech gets incorporated into the game more.

But I have no more trouble beleiving that Statesman is of AV status than I have beleiving that someone elses' character is an avatar of the sun.

I guess when Spider-Man beat up Firelord, he was running on Heroic?

I can agree with this: Presentation is key.

When I am fighting spats-wearing, tommy-gun-toting mobsters at level 20, there should be some kind of cue in the visual or other presentation as to why they are so much more powerful than the lower level Council member whos RPGs bounce off like raindrops. Warriors use magical weapons to enhance their honed skills, but their weapons don't have FX indicating why they are so powerful, etc.

There is some handwaving done, but not enough that many players don't get a completely wrong impression and can't understand why Trolls who can rip boulders out of the ground are less of a threat than some guy who doesn't know better than to bring an axe to a gun fight.

Many players have expressed the opinion that CoX characters are much less powerful than Marvel or DC characters, when I think they are actually MORE powerful in most cases (not Synapse, though )

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On a more technical note, the AV regen rate -- which, as a percentage, is only 1.5 times that of a lieutenant or boss, and just seems high because of an AVs total hit points

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There's also the issue of resistances.
The characters that are capable of soloing an AV tend to be, if not are exclusively, non-S/L oriented.

You can easily have two characters of the same AT, the same quality of build with the same expensive IOs, played by players of the same skill level, yet one is allowed to be able to defeat an AV and the other is not by virtue that they chose the "wrong" power set. That's not fair by any means.


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By 'an' AV here, do you mean 'any' AV?

If there were an AV that same build could beat with S/L damage, would that be better, or do both nearly identical builds, played bey the same player, have to be able to beat the same AVs without regard to resistances?

I think it's okay for different AVs to have different resistances, but if you are saying too many resist S/L too well, I am of two minds on the subject: it should not be unfair to builds, but at the same time it's hard to imagine a would beater that enough soldiers could take down with AR fire.

On the other other hand, I don't see a problem with some builds being 'AV killer' builds while others are not. If you are saying that there are some powersets that can't take down AVs...well actually I don't have too much trouble with the idea that the Empathy/Electricity powerset combo might be intended to be good at something other than AV destruction.

Now that I've said that, someone is going to pop up and say soloing AVs with Empathy/Electricity is easy...

So if I'm getting this right, what you are saying is that it's okay if signature characters exist, so long as they are 'sample characters' and display the same general power level of a PC of equal level.

You also don't mind if 'Arch-characters' exist, so long as they aren't marketed as the signature characters.

So let me ask: what if the signature character of the game were, say, Mynx. And what if Mynx maxed out as a 50 EB (plus a sizable buff to compensate for any problems with the AI), but in the lore there was a more powerful character (Manticore) who was her mentor, and who didn't show up except for a rare appearances (say, on a villain SF where you get to bea down the Vindicators, only to have AV Manticore show up as the final boss, looking for revenge).

Is that what you are talking about?

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When the DCUO and Marvel MMOs debut, will you feel the same if maxed out characters in those systems still aren't as powerful mechanically as the in-game Superman, Darkseid, Hulk, or Thanos?

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Those characters are one of the reasons I have no desire to play in those canons. Again I ask, what purpose do hero's heroes serve in an MMO? In comics I can see some purpose, but not in a comic book MMO, it is part of the genre that doesn't help the game, unless of course I am missing something, in which case I'd be happy to be enlightened.

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Fair enough.

The thing is, even if my character is more powerful mechanically than a Signature character, it means nothing because I will still never be of that status in canon (unless I win a contest or something). I may be able to beat down Statesman solo ingame, but that doesn't mean my face will be on the next in-store box (and that's a shame, too, as I am much better looking).

It's not that I feel that having "heroes' heroes" means anything to the Devs or the critters, it's just that it's an unavoidable result of having a canon (and a marketing department) in the first place.

That said, I'm sure there are players in this game that have indeed soloed Statesman, or Recluse without the towers, despite their AV status. I just see no reason to weaken them even more so that my toggle-less Tanker Daisy Dukes can solo them.

Even if the badge you get for beating alt future Lord Recluse added you to some sort of list that made it so that all Arachnos critters took a knee when you clicked on them, that would still mean little if all 150,000 players could get there and it would be 'unfair' if everyone couldn't.

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IIRC 8 Controllers or Dominators can hold anything.

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That may be the reality, but I doubt that it is the intent or design.

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8 Blasters should melt any any AV in less than 30 seconds IMO.


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If 8 Blasters 'should' be able to melt any Arch Villain in 30 seconds, then what should there be in the game to challenge them in an instance?

Some new rank between Arch Villains and Monsters?

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What I'm saying is that the signature characters and other AVs shouldn't be possible for some but not others, based solely on AT.

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By 'AT' here, do you actually mean 'build'? I find that most people say AT when they mean build.

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But the reality in game is that Wolverine (Scrapper) and Emma Frost (Controller) beats Mags silly, while Cyclops (Blaster) and Collossus (Tanker) get owned.

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Ideally, IMHO, it whould vary from AV to AV, and possibly within a single encounter. Some AVs should be best handled with a team of 8 Blasters, where a different one calls for 8 Tankers. Or even Blasting the AV from range should be best early on, then you want to send in the Tankers at a certain point.

A related question might be: should there be content that is intended by design to be above the performance level of the average PUG, and if so, how should it be gated/labelled?

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I know within my circle of friends, the sentiment is that characters like Statesman and company directly detract from our fun simply by the fact we'll never be quite as good as them.

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When the DCUO and Marvel MMOs debut, will you feel the same if maxed out characters in those systems still aren't as powerful mechanically as the in-game Superman, Darkseid, Hulk, or Thanos?

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1) AVs should have mez protection, but not the PTOD. If a Tanker has 17.3 MAG of protection, then give Statesman that, but not more. If he hit Unstoppable then he gets another 17.3. Still makes him hella hard, but fairly so. If Sister Psyche is Mind/FF then she gets the 6-9 FF defenders get and no sleep protection.


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I don't know what the numbers are, but I feel confident that the idea is that 8 Controllers should not be able to keep an AV held more than 1 minute out of every 2. The PToD is just an easy way of doing that. However you get there is immaterial, the effect is the same.

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2) Tame the AVs regen rate. Unless they're a regen type character, AVs should not have such a high regen rate, IMO. This serves only to require [X] amount of DPS or -regen to take them down. And if the AV is regen, they they should not have much if any resistance (except in MoG)


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Here the point is for the AV to last some minimum amount of time against a team of 8 Blasters. Again, I don't know the numbers, but the end result is the same: the Av has enough mitigation that even with the anti-mitigation tools available to a team, it's non-trivial.

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3) Tame AV damage. Fighting an AV should be like fighting an expert and strong player. AVs being able to do 1700 HP in one swing is silly.

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If the AV is hitting a squishy for 1700, he's hitting the Tanker for 170, which he is going to more or less shrug off. This is before debuffs. Just pointing that out. Maybe it would be better for them to have some unresistable damage than to hit so hard?

To put this into comic-book perspective: If Doomsday can take Superman out with a score or so of blows, how long should it take him to take down a 'squishy' like Batman or Vixen?

The design is that neither Batman nor Superman should be soloing him.