Leese

Does Read or Die the TV's Anita King count?

Defiant: Sundays, 7PM GMT

IIRC, it lets you go into the game without checking the files, but "at your own risk" as it were.

Anyone had a lot of difficulty finishing the trial since the recent patch?

In two out of two attempts I've been part of recently, Desdemona has bugged during the final fight and stopped doing anything or vanished completely. We'd had several successful runs before and know what to do, but any time Desdemona has bugged, it's been a disaster of leaguewipe after leaguewipe.

So you're using teleport for your travel power, was it?

Try typing in the following...

/bind SHIFT+LCLICK powexec_name Teleport

You can now hold down shift and click places to more easily teleport about! You can of course change SHIFT to CTRL/ALT or LCLICK to RCLICK if you like.

Yeah, a number of the EU servers seem to have gone down again.

Currently working my way through this, and loving every minute of it. There's some remarkably innovative, intriguing, powerful and sad things going on here, and some brilliant characters.

Caution, potential spoilers below

I just did the mission that takes place near the Magesterium, and had, in quick succession, one of the funniest and one of the tensest and most scary experiences I've had so far in CoH.

An Echo of Galaxy City is accessible through Oroborous. You can go through it to go to the old, pre-ruined Galaxy zone where all the badges and plaques await. No missions, trainers or (I think) enemies though.

OK devs, you got me. You really got me. Really looking forward to whatever you have planned. Just don't sit on it too long

With the Most Boring Trial returning to WST status this week, I figured I'd put down some ideas about how these trials could be redesigned to be more fun.

Note: any numbers I mention are not really thought through, just made up in order to show the contrast between the three different trials.


All versions are accessed through the Team Up Teleporter.



General approach to balancing

Sky Raiders trial: Easy mode. Intended to be the trial run if you need a respec due to a broken character. Repeatable once a week per account for another respec. Another option is a useful, repeatable auto temp power for those who help. 4-8 players.

Freakshow trial: More difficult. This is what you run while levelling, and for a wider choice of more potent temps - though you can also get a respec from it. 4-8 players

Rikti Trial: Challenging. Level 50 only, and while it won't drop Empyrean Merits or Incarnate salvage, you can get Astrals and threads from it (and respec). 8-16 players.

The respecs from all three trials stack with each other - you get one per week per account no matter if you run all three.


General process for all three trials

1) The missions before the trial proper are gone. Instead the TUT drops you in an instanced Terra Volta to start with, and you must fight your way to the reactor, killing several bosses or achieving objectives along the way to open the front doors.

2) The second section, getting the keys from captured scientists, plays out as it currently does.

3) The reactor phase is MUCH quicker paced. There can be a set number of enemies in the reactor at any one time, and as soon as enemies are defeated, more arrive. This phase ends and the trial is over once a certain number of enemies have been defeated. No more waiting around for 45 minutes for something to happen. The radiation shields mechanic stays the same.



Sky Raiders trial

Outdoors: The sky raiders have set up a forcefield around the entire building, entry is impossible until you destroy four forcefield generators.

In the Reactor: There can be up to teamsize*1.2 enemies in the reactor at one time, and you must defeat teamsize*5 enemies to win. Bosses appear rarely.


Freakshow trial

Outdoors: The freakshow have set eight bombs (glowies) around the outside of the reactor. They are optional, but if you don't disactivate them, you will face more enemies inside the reactor during the final phase, as their bombs will blow open the outside wall and give them easier access to the core.
(yes this is a deliberate inversion of the "don't touch the glowies" rumor)

In the Reactor: If you got all the bombs, it's teamsize*1.6 enemies at one time, and teamsize*9 enemies to win. That scales up to teamsize*2.5 and teamsize*13 if you didn't get the bombs.
The final enemy to spawn is always a Freak Tank Elite Boss.


Rikti trial

Outdoors: It's a raid! Plays similarly to a Rikti raid - Rikti dropships patrol the skies dropping bombs, and Rikti teleport in right next to the players.
A pair of Rikti dropships have parked on the ground near the front door and trained teleportation rays on the area. Any hero approaching the front doors will be instantly teleported away. Both must be destroyed before access can be granted.

In the Reactor: Rikti teleport directly into the core room instead of using the upper doors. Teamsize*2 enemies at a time, and teamsize*15 enemies to win. Every tenth enemy is a Rikti Magus or Heavy Assault Suit. The "final" enemy to appear is an AV, though infinite enemies can continue to appear while you fight him as long as they don't exceed the cap.

Astral for opening the front door, astral for freeing all the scientists, astral for defeating the AV.


Yeah, these are rough ideas, but I think it'd be better than what we have.

Normally it annoys me when someone decides to go dance in the cutscene in the Lambda trial, but a MOLambda team on Defiant I was on was doing the Antacid badge and we finished the sabotage phase with two minutes to spare... so...





If you squint, you can just about see the top dog himself.

Already mentioned, but have a lv50 Ice/FF troller.

Impossible to solo? Not quite.
Deeply, intensely boring and slow to solo? Yes.

Her soloing career came to an end at Atta, after it took the best part of an hour to get halfway through the mission.

You need a second costume slot. You'll have a chance to earn one at level 20.

It's OK to join a team that's significantly higher or lower level than you.

If it's much higher than you you'll still stand a chance because you'll be sidekicked up (though you'll have less powers than you would have if you were really that level.)

If it's much lower you'll still get good XP and drops, and while some of your powers may be greyed out you'll still have more than a player who was really that level would.

So feel free to play with whoever you want to.

Little, hypothetical question for the thread.

A new player comes up to you. They're interested in buying access to Peacebringers and/or Warshades in the Store, and want to know if you think it's worth it.

Would you advise them to spend their money on unlocking Peacebringers and/or Warshades?

If this question were about Controllers, or Masterminds I would say yes, no question. Warshades and VEATs, I don't have enough experience on, but I wouldn't advise against it.

Peacebringers... I don't know. I wouldn't want to say "don't bother," I like my PB, but any answer I give would have to be heavily qualified.

Things have changed, but I think you will like it.

But yes, paragonwiki is a great place to start.

I love that advertisers are so desperate that they need to bribe us to watch their adverts now.

Well, DPS is great, I just don't think it's the entire picture.

Disappointed that the Phantoms aren't the ghost-style phantoms, but PA phantoms would be good too. I think I'll go for them. Also, flying nicely fits my own travel power. Thanks for the help.

It's time for my MA/SR to pick a lore pet, but I want to pick one that fits my character's theme. That limits my choices to...

Longbow
Vanguard
Phantoms (at a pinch)

... but Longbow are boring and I don't want them.
All the pet comparisons I've seen focus purely on DPS, and Vanguard is poor at that apparently, but do they have other qualities that make up for that?
... and do the Phantoms look just like the ghosts in Croatoa?

Maybe the two handed weapons are alternate animations for existing sets like Broadsword?

Rednames, could you clarify this?

I own two accounts - one NA, one EU. The NA account has barely been played at all, no characters I care about are on it, it has no vet rewards and no boosters.

I'd rather not have to change the login or global name of my EU account. Can I arrange for a GM to change the login and global of my NA account in advance of the switch, so that they do not match the EU one?

Thanks for putting this server list merge into action, it's something I've always wanted.

Anyone else having trouble accessing The Escapist's site?