McNum

Hiya! I'm from Denmark and I play on the NA servers.

I've been here since just before I1, so I was just too impatient to wait for the EU release. I've stayed here since I've picked up a few good friends here, and even if I were to swap to an EU account, they wouldn't be able to follow.

That and the weak Dollar to Danish Kroner exchange rate makes it pretty cheap to play here.

Yep.

Start the normal progress for creating the Training Room folder. Cancel as soon as the folder is there. Copy all the files from your existing City of Heroes folder over into the Training Room folder. Then run the Training Room update procedure again. It will recognize the files and download the difference. So it'd update I15 CoH to whatever patch they're running in I16 closed beta right now.

So I16 is going to be the Quality of Life Issue? A lot of little things to make the game more enjoyable and remove some old annoyances? Sweet, I was hoping we'd get one of those. And power colors, of course.

I like it. It's going to be nice to be able to not care about levels as much, and if three people want to play together, they can.

This does make me wonder. If Power Customization and Super-Sidekicking are features that the Devs were willing to reveal in advance of Open Beta then... What are they hiding? There might be more surprises in store for us.

Concept first, then optimize.

I get ideas for a character, try to figure out what makes them tick and what my purpose with that character is. Then I optimize for that purpose. I can't play a character optimized just for numbers, I get bored. But simply putting a few sentences worth of concept behind it and it all gets much clearer. The sorceress specializing in barrier magic because she wants to protect the defenseless, the professional ninja who never breaks a contract and dresses in white, the electricity slinging mutant daredevil, the woman inheriting the trick archery powers of a hero slain in the Rikti War and so on. For some reason, most of them are female.

When I got that in mind, then I optimize. I always have a few character concepts to spare in my mind, so making a new character is easy, but I can't simply pick two powersets because they're the best. A Fire/Kin Controller would bore me without a really good reason that it's both Fire and Kinetics. Fire/Thermal is a much tighter concept in my mind. I have a Fire/Emp angel somewhere, although she'd get rolled Fire/Thermal (colored white in I16) if I were to make her now.

I don't plan out IOs too much. When the character matures, it becomes obvious what bonuses would be nice, so I go for them. My Ninja/Ninja Stalker went for Damage boosts, for instance, but it's not planned out in advance. I do buy sets when the characters get high level, because... what else do I spend my inf on? But until 35+, it's generics all the way.

If I'm at Portal Corp and need to get to Talos, I always use this. It's pretty handy, although it odd that you appear next to the ferry when you do that. Do you just catch one that's already in transit or something?

I'm also a 60+ Month Vet.

I like breaking stuff, especially software. So when I get my beta invite, I'm going to try it out and try to make it break. It's not every day game developers want you to break their stuff, but in Beta it's part of why we're there. Break the game and tell them how you did it.

The smileys need to be swapped for the dark background counterparts.



They all have a white outline, as they're made for bright backgrounds. Neither Hero nor Villain themes are bright and should use the black outline variant of the smileys.

That or CoX themed smileys. That'd be nice. But dark background version of the standard ones would be good enough.

Also apparently smileys count as images and we can only use four per post. While having image signatures allowed. I'm sensing a mixed message policy there.

EDIT: There's something odd going on with the smileys, anyway. I used four in this post: Happy, Eek, Roll Eyes and Sad in that order. Sometimes one of them won't show.

I want a Rularuu Megamix boss challenge. If you think you can farm that, you're welcome to try. If you can, I'll add Master Illusionists and Vanguard Wizards to the mix.

The message boards are merging. The game isn't, at least not today.

This looks good. Really good. The only thing I'm missing is that I haven't seen Archery or Trick Arrows as customizable. I have a Defender who'd really like having red fletching on her arrows. Other than that, it all looks sweet here. Way netter than I expected.

Thanks BAB!

Yeah, I'm gonna go with new here, too.

Tankers are more than just tauntbots here. Sure their role is to get the attention of the biggest, meanest thing in the spawn, but they've got pretty nice damage and soft controls, too.

You simply can't lump all Defenders in together. Each powerset is a completely different style. A Kin could probably do the stay close to the Tanker thing with its target centric buffs/debuffs, but try the same with a Storm Summoner and you'll be in trouble. Incidentally, an awesome Stormer can act as a Tank, too.

Controllers, well, they got lockdown, but their secondaries are almost Defender level. Some Controllers can use this to outdamage pretty much anything in the game. Others are the masters of total defense where nothing moves and if it does, it'll miss anyway.

Blasters... Unload AoEs as soon as the spawn is mostly under control, then close in and use the powerful single target close range and melee attacks on the big guys. A Blaster at range is dangerous. A Blaster in melee range who knows what he's doing is godlike.

And Scrappers. Pick the biggest, baddest enemy in the group and go nuts. Scrappers just flip out and kill people. They get more criticals the tougher the foe is. Let them.

You didn't mention Kheldians, as in Peacebringers and Warshades. But that's okay. Just try to give them a general role. With their shape shifting, they'll fill in anywhere and do almost as good a job as anyone else. The trick is they can change role on the fly. A great Kheldian is a sight to behold. Especially a master Warshade. No offense to Peacebringers, of course, but a high level rapidly shape shifting master of defense and damage is one of the coolest and rarest sights in the game.

However, these are guidelines, not rules. You really don't need any one AT in the game. In fact, some of the most powerful teams are all Defenders because of how insanely powerful buffs and debuffs are by design in this game. Some ATs can usurp roles from others, such as the Blapper, who like the Scrapper goes after the biggest, baddest thing around at close range as a Blaster, or a Tanker slotted for damage over defense to become a slightly more durable Scrapper. It all works as long as you keep up the slotting and have a competent player at the keyboard.

And that is the secret of City of Heroes.

Ah, good old Oil Slick. That never gets old.

1. Oil Slick is currently bugged in AE. It will do the "hit something else" bug that you have seen. You can hit it with fire or energy AoEs not targeting the oil itself. It works fine in normal missions, though, so try that instead.

2. Oil Slick lights when it feels like it.

3. Oil Slick can light when it is defeated. Usually that's only possible with fire or energy damage, but there are exception. Police Drones can light it with their instant kill shots, and kill volumes like around AE and the markets will also set it off. The Kill Target button in AE testing will do the same trick.

But Oil Slick has always been plagued by hard to fix bugs. Adding one or two to the pile isn't changing much.

You missed a patch note:

User Interface
<ul type="square">[*] Changed the color of Patrol XP in the Experience Window to be more visible for our colorblind users.[/list]Thanks! It made a very clear difference to me.

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Just saying. We were told more info for I16 in July, now it's July.

MORE I16 INFO NAO!

Er umm... More Issue 16 info please?

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*Stares at the design docs on his desk*
*Laughs evilly*

Soon(tm)!

*Leaves without answering the original question*

Edit: To Obsidius, Does that make you Sgt. "Big Toe" Hulka?

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Design docs? You mean none of it has been implemented yet? I'm not sure how, but I know the AE is at fault for this.

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A design document is pretty much a recipe for a game. Well, ideally. It has all the juicy details on what needs to be in the game and how they interact and should, again ideally, be consulted all the way through implementation. So when Castle says he has the design doc on his desk, it's a really good sign. Of course, said design doc contains all the info we want, so teasing that he has it right there is a bit mean.

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AE can also be seen as Æ which is the Latin symbol for copper.

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Say...

What's the alt+# combination for that little icon?

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Alt+0198

But personally, I just hit the Æ key on my keyboard. Æ is the capital version of the letter æ, by the way, which is Alt+0230.

Pfft, I'm not angry at people TP droning in PVP. I'm just disgusted at a professor wasting his time with something like this and possibly opening himself up to all sorts of ethics trouble if people who were affected by him were to complain. That's just sloppy academics. Acceptable as a first or second year student, perhaps, but not at professor level. Publish or perish, yes, but there are other ways of doing that.

But as I said, I can't do anything about it, I wasn't affected by his PVP antics. Those that were, however, can. Sure, it'd prove him "right", but it'd be amusing to watch.

So he used a live commercial MMO to conduct "experiments" on other people?

Well then, I'm sure he remembered to gather the needed written permissions from not only NCSoft, but also from all people involved in these "experiments". I mean, otherwise he'd leave himself open for all sorts of nasty ethics complaints. Or worse. But as a professor, I don't need to tell him things like that, I'm just a lowly Master of Arts, and even I knew not to do anything that would get the university in trouble.

So it would be extremely sad if someone with grounds for en ethics complaint were to contact his university to make said complaint. Especially in writing. But I'm sure he's been careful and only killed the avatars of people who already agreed to be a part of the "experiment". It's just good ethics to do so.

Sorry, can't keep that level of sarcasm up...

Anyway, if you feel you've been mistreated by these "experiments", and feel vindictive, contact the university directly and complain. Even better if a group of people make a joint complaint. When entering a PVP Zone you agree to getting attacked and killed, but I don't see anywhere in the EULA of agreeing to be part of scientific "experiments". Actually, I don't see anything in the EULA about allowing people to conduct experiments on other players either.

So if you really want to cause trouble, don't just refute his paper, do an ethics complaint as well. I can't be part of it, though, didn't PVP when he was active. But if his "experiment" affected you negatively and you didn't agree to being used as a guinea pig, then you're in the clear for a complaint. Best if you have some data to back it up with, of course, but you don't have to follow the scientific method in a complaint. He, on the other hand, must in his paper.

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This is Bob Barker remind you to spay your catgirls.

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I'd say you forgot the neuter part, but a catguy hasn't been seen in decades. Which begs the questions: How do the things keep reproducing?

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Parthenogenesis.

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Dominant genes?
Human + Catgirl = Catgirl.

Next time I play Final Fantasy 7, I'll read Sephiroth's lines with a gangsta accent. At the risk of digging up a dead meme: "Yo dawg, I herd you like swords, so I put a sword in your flower girl so you can cry while you fight." I'm not sure if this makes the game more or less awesome. Barret will need the posh British accent, of course.

Bugged in beta, not fixed. If you use the Kill Target button in MA testing mode, it can die, likewise for Fire/Energy AoEs going off nearby. But targeting the Oil makes the attack go elsewhere.

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Re: McNum

Wow, are you serious? Oh, man, that just really adds fuel to the fire. A friend had given me a bit of info about Pain, but I didn't think there was much similarity beyond the names.
From the sounds of this, I think the author unfortunately really didn't care about the messages--he just thought "NINJAS SUFFERING ARE COOL", and that the emo darkity angst was 3DGY and HIP. It's terrible when a good character just goes right down the toilet due to idiot fans.

Thanks for telling me about this. It's not like I needed another reason to hate this arc further, but it's certainly welcome! From now on, I will stand for the opposite of PAIN's badong-ness. I will be...gnodab.

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If these guys are the guys you fought, it's a complete ripoff.

It's sad to see Pain used like that, because his arc in the manga is one of the best arcs in Naruto. When your story becomes stale, blow up the hero's hometown. Which God Realm did. It was also a nice arc because it wasn't just the "Naruto saves everyone" show, like Goku always did in Dragon Ball. Every single ninja did what they could to fight off Pain. Sure, Naruto DID save everyone at the end, but several side characters got their times to shine. It was also fun to see the mastermind actually be a Mastermind. Without his minions, he was actually pretty weak. The classic Ninja/Pain Mastermind, really. Most of the powers fit pretty well, except he has stronger pets.