StratoNexus

Kahn Task Force.

In the first mission, teleporting inside City Hall is problematic in several areas. You get the red circle and are unable to activate the power requiring a teleport effect. This includes powers like Shield Charge and Wormhole.

In the first mission, you cannot always use teleports inside City Hall. There are just some areas of City Hall that give you the red circle. This is confirmed hero side, but not villain side.

Why? Shield Charge and Wormhole are pretty staple powers and Wormhole is especially important in the hero version in that first foyer where three groups are in close proximity.

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I wonder how a rad/ice super team would fair.... *Cheesy, wavy dream transition*

Slows, debuffs, the fact that 8 rad/* or */rad make for quick super teams anyway.... hmmm...

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My SG runs that team. Pure awesome. Massive AoE starting at level 4 with Frost Breath and capped off with Ice Storm at level 20. Too much ownage.

Here was our base build plan (all the empty slots were choose your own):

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.401
http://www.cohplanner.com/

[u]Click this DataLink to open the build![u]

Level 19 Magic Defender
Primary Power Set: Radiation Emission
Secondary Power Set: Ice Blast
Power Pool: Leadership

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Radiant Aura -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Ice Bolt -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Accelerate Metabolism -- Empty(A)
Level 4: Frost Breath -- Empty(A)
Level 6: Maneuvers -- Empty(A)
Level 8: [Empty]
Level 10: Assault -- Empty(A)
Level 12: [Empty]
Level 14: Tactics -- Empty(A)
Level 16: [Empty]
Level 18: [Empty]
Level 20: Ice Storm -- Empty(A)
Level 22: [Empty]
Level 24: [Empty]
Level 26: [Empty]
Level 28: [Empty]
Level 30: [Empty]
Level 32: [Empty]
Level 35: [Empty]
Level 38: [Empty]
Level 41: [Empty]
Level 44: [Empty]
Level 47: [Empty]
Level 49: [Empty]
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Vigilance
------------
[u]Set Bonus Totals:[u]

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I want that last spot. I just hope they fixed the copy program.

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Copy tool is back up and running. I have copied over to test and am ready for Sunday. I will load up the inspire racks in my test base and SG invite anyone who wants in so they can use them as needed also.

I like to run TFs in a variety of ways. Sometimes we do speed runs. Sometimes we fight everything on the path to the objectives. On rare occasions we go out of our way to fight most of the enemies on the maps.

Normally we run "balanced' teams, 3 to 5 defenders/controllers/tankers and 3 to 5 scrappers/blasters/Khelds. Sometimes we run all one AT or a purposeful odd mix.

When I am a pickup (most TF I join outside of my SG have multiple members from the same SG or at least multiple people who play together somewhat regularly), I do my best to fall into whatever playstyle they are running (and I generally only join as a pickup when I am willing to play any type of playstyle).

I can join the run on Test, Sunday July 12th at 7 PM EST. I have a Kat/Inv (freshly IOd, and on test I can add the missing purples for a complete build).

Celeste Cat

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I'm saying solo because in a group it becomes pretty simple. Multiple /Kins plus an 850% damage cap = absolute carnage, so take whichever Brute has the best DPS chain at capped recharge (probably Stone or Fire), add enough /Kins to cap damage and recharge, and watch the fun. Likewise, adding a FF and a Sonic makes survivability a non-issue for anyone.

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Under those conditions, I'd be surprised if the Fire/Fire blaster could be beat. HF + BA + Blaze + Ring of Fire + Fire Sword.

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Why Fire/Elec instead of Fire/Fire? Electric gives you a damage aura and Havoc Punch (Thunder Strike's activation is a bit long), but /Fire gives you a stronger damage aura, a melee attack with almost as good DPA (Fire Sword), and Burn + Ring of Fire, which should more than make up the difference. Electric does have Power Sink, but if you have the inf for this sort of high-recharge build you can afford the +recovery uniques.

(I'm assuming that Power Sink and Lightning Field alone can't fully drain a mob's endurance... if it can, the survivability might be worth it.)

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A Fire/Fire probably can put out more damage than a Fire/Elec, but the endurance needed is unsustainable solo (One Emp, Kin, or Cold makes it all better though ). For blasters, Fire/Elec or Fire/MM would be the way to go because of infinite endurance.

How much of your playtime is teamed? How much of your playtime is teamed with your friends specifically? What are your friends playing?

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Rage isn't perma, which means you'd get the -20 defense drop when it crashes.

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You get the -20 defense when Rage crashes even if it is Perma.

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Blazing Aura's endurance cost (it has the same DS as the Fiery Aura version, but a much higher endurance cost)

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Blazing Aura for blasters actually has a lower DS than the tanker, brute, and scrapper version (.2 vs .22) while costing 50% more endurance to run. But I'm not bitter.

FF is a great set and it could present the slower pace for you.

It was recently said about FF:
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2. You ARE a buffbot.
You can provide most of the benefit of being a Force Fielder with four powers, in 25% of your time. Those four powers are: Dispersion Bubble, Deflection Field, Insulation Field, and Maneuvers (from the Leadership Pool.) If the whole team is bubbled, within the radius of the two toggles, and you are not stunned, dead, or in Personal Force Field, you have raised all of them to the Defense softcap from about level 17 on. Blasters are ten times tougher, Scrappers and Tanks are between two and ten times tougher [depending] and anyone up close has mez protection and you don't have to lift a finger beyond that. The only one on the team who is NOT a tank is you. Let me reiterate: If you do NOTHING besides keep the team bubbled and stay close to the guy on point, you are a good Force Field Defender.

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OTOH, your team is so safe, they have a tendency to move through missions at a pretty fast clip, since they can be unconcerned about enemy attacks.

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Doms are awesome and have a very fun playstyle (likely for more experience players though), but their lack of easy to use aoe damage will be theirdownfall imo. I say "easy to use" because they can actually do ok aoe, but cumbersome powers like slow cones+slow pbaoes really show their weakness on teams using targeted aoes and easy to use pbaoes.

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Just like some blasters do better AoE damage than other blasters, some doms do better AoE damage than other doms. I look forward to Dom changes, but I will always love blasters as well, so I am my own evidence against my concerns. That being said, it is still a concern, because, IME, doms already play a lot like blasters anyway and in the future they will be even more blaster like, only much better at handling very tough encounters.

It will be interesting.

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*Which* issues actually become material issues the devs will have to address isn't obvious to me at the moment.

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The (if it ever happens, new) dominator vs. blaster issue seems pretty obvious to me, but blasters are apparently popular, so they may be able to hold on to their popularity even vs. (if it ever happens, new) dominators.

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Trip mines are nice for ambushes in the second mission.

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When I run the ITF for a challenge, I expect to ignore everything in mission 2 except 10 crystals.

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Not quite the 7 defenders, 1 blaster we were going for, but on a holiday weekend, you take what you can get.

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Why the one blaster? Go 8 defenders.....its awesome.

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Indeed.

The blaster is a Fire/Fire and provides a good focal point for the team with both Blazing Aura and Hot Feet running. I also know how to play that character well as a tank, in case one of my teammates gets in trouble. My Kin/Elec is not as capable of grabbing aggro. While mostly we do not need much aggro control, since the whole team is very survivable, there are times where it is nice to have that focal point and aggro generation. The Sonic/Sonic and one of the Rad defenders also help support with aggro control quite a bit, so we could run 8 defenders.

Also, defenders do not get Blaze... yet.

I'd like to thank you for organizing the event as well. It motivated my SG to run the ITF on Invinc, no temps. We ended up with 5 defenders and 1 blaster from the SG and a pickup duo of a defender and blaster. Not quite the 7 defenders, 1 blaster we were going for, but on a holiday weekend, you take what you can get. With 6 defenders and 2 blasters we stomped through Romans and Nazis with great fun had by all. (I am also stupid and got mixed up on the times, running at 5 PM EST).

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For instance, would it actually hurt anything if the /info on a Nemesis soldier said "The weapons used by these troops may look archaic, but that's just an affectation. On the inside, Nemesis technology is nothing but cutting edge superscience" instead of trying to tell us that Nemesis is so CRAZY BRILLIANT that he can do things with steam that are utterly impossible?

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What is the difference between doing things with steam that everyone else thinks is impossible and cutting edge superscience, other than a bit of flavor and cosmetics?

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If there were a particular source of power they'd found, or that they needed from our dimension, it could add some sense of drama and urgency to the story.

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Well, that still isn't a theme. It is just a different thing that happened.

It would take some work and I'd have to make a decent number of changes to pick a theme and make sure the story supported it. I think the story works fine as an action movie and is entertaining, but not thought provoking. If one of the possible themes ever worms into my head as something I'd like to explore in an arc, I would probably just modify this arc to support it.

For some examples of themes that are touched on in my arc but not developed: betrayal of one cause for another; coping with a friend's change in outlook; democracy vs. fascism (although that is pretty impersonal and a too broad really, one would have to pick something specific about that philosophical conflict in such a short medium); overcoming differences in philosophy to work together (I did want to explore this a bit, but when I tried to work it in I felt I was losing the action feel and was also putting too many thoughts into the players head, so I scrapped it (I guess I could use the contacts revulsion of the Malta to explore this theme without putting the thoughts into the players head)).

Thank you much for the play and the extra time to detail out a review.

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"just a bunch of stuff that happened", ... gratuitous geography

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Yeah. Since my desire to create the arc stemmed from wanting to set-up Malta, Knives, and Nemesis (had to drop Nemesis as I never got the snipers to spawn, and the snipers were all I really wanted of the Nemesis) in Oranbega, the story suffers for it. I have to decide what is more important to me. So far the game aspect has been a higher priority to me, but that might switch as time passes.

Its just a bunch of stuff that happens so I can fight on those maps against those enemies. Not the greatest premise to start with and thus a middle-of-the-road arc resulted. I love my arc, of course, but I cannot help but agree that I have the plot of a simple action movie without any real theme. There are a few themes that present themselves as possible, but then I don't ever go anywhere with any of them. So it has potential, if I decide to grab one of them and run with it, but since I love it as is, I think it will be hard to get the motivation to go there.

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She says she hid the stuff there a while ago...the hell? Dimensional portal technology is not something you stash under some civilian's mattress....

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Alright. I thought it was fairly common in comics for some heroes to have a mechanic/scientist/doctor/etc. where they occasionally hid stuff. I do agree I had trouble with it as well, but I though it was within genre to do. Changing that could tie in with another change I want to make anyway.

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Except for the pretentious quotes at the end, though, the dialog is reasonably well-written.

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Was it pretentious for me to use the quotes or were the quotes merely pretentious (the latter being not only acceptable, but desirable)? I had written up my own fascist rhetoric and speeches (also generally long-winded, I am going for the "I'd pay real money if they just shut-up" feel), but decided to use the quotes instead as a kind of easter egg for those who might care or know.

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plot hole

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Does this reference putting the Portal Tech with a civilian, or my (not so great?) attempt to allow the player to fill in a bit of the story as they see fit before mission 3?

I have a question about who would make a good contact for this arc. Betty works OK, but I'd rather replace her with someone stock and I'd like to actually play the arc with that character and not feel stupid. Indigo would be my first choice, but she does not exist as a lvl 41+ Boss or less (having them show in mission 3 is not vital, but amuses me, so I prefer to have it be something I can use as an ally). I am thinking a Longbow Warden/Officer of some kind, and that would let me alter the Portal Tech goofiness in the first mission as well.

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More properly, if you are offering your arc to groups of size X then you are implicitly stating that competent groups of size X have a reasonable chance at success.

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If and when we get the ability to gate access by team size then you can start throwing battleships at people.

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This is where I disagree with you. While it would be nice for the devs to add that functionality, there is zero reason I should feel constrained to wait because people choose to ignore a recommendation. If one designs an arc with a recommendation that a team of 6 is needed to beat it, if soloists ignore that text and hop over the fence whatever happens to them is their problem.

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Nothing in the game is more fun to play on a team, except in the degenerate case of unsoloable content like Hami or mothership raids, or maybe one or two others. (I remember people were trying to solo the ITF, don't know if any succeeded.)

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Nothing in the game is more fun... than making a subjective statement into absolute truth for all.

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Unless your definition of "fun" is "mercilessly destroy anything in your path", which is pathological, the primary effect of teaming is to trivialize content. Fixing this requires making changes the devs aren't willing to make. It's not something you can overcome with the tools in the Architect.

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True, to an extent. However, maps full of AVs are not my idea of challenging a team. Oh, AVs are one good way of providing challenge. But a long series of them gets old, although making them varied helps quite a bit (the AVs in the STF are a good example). A variety of different types of tasks can also provide good mental exercise for a team, even if many of the individual tasks are somewhat easy for the team. Provide enough variety and even good soloists could be severely hampered, as they will probably run into something that hits a weakness (something a teammate or two could handle well or cover for you).

Another challenge for a team is overcoming Killer GMing. While that isn't a good way to run an RPG, it is common in video games. Many video games require you to learn through defeat and repeated effort. The trick is creating encounters that are fun to fail a few times until you learn how to succeed (and after that, trying other things and failing some more while learning other ways to succeed).

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Just because they decided not to hold up the release of I14 until after Easter does not imply they ignored the problems. They did get the fixes in pretty quick after I14 release, which indicates to me that they were probably working on them for some time. The sad thing is how little control a tiny minority of the players had when confronted with those well reported weaknesses of the system

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IIRC you were posting the issue about custom enemies with no ranged attack on the blaster boards. And If I recall, your words were to the effect

"We were told this would not happen"

So when you argue that players had so little control and it was a shame, which side of your mouth was that from ? The self righteous one or the one that egged people on to abuse it ?

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I am not sure what you are saying. I was critical of the decision the devs made concerning the lack of ranged attacks on some custom critters. I felt it trivialized one of my critters in a way I did not like and could be abused and would need to be fixed. I was surprised it exsited in closed beta, much less open, and even more so live. I have a feeling there is a lot about the custom critter design process over the previous 6 (+?) months we do not know. I suspect they had an entirely different system in mind and in the works which unfortunately failed.

While I am disappointed they did not have the current system in place during beta, I am not surprised they decided not to hold back I14 for it.

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A cynical person might think that they deliberately let the MA over reward during the aniversary/ reactivation period to sucker people into renewing their accounts for a game circumstance they had no intention in allowing them to play.


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That person would have to be ignorant as well as cynical. Not an uncommon mixture, IME.

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# Developers ignore warnings
# Developers receive further warning in open beta
# Developers ignore open beta warnings
# People post the problems on the boards
# Further Ignore

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Just because they decided not to hold up the release of I14 until after Easter does not imply they ignored the problems. They did get the fixes in pretty quick after I14 release, which indicates to me that they were probably working on them for some time. The sad thing is how little control a tiny minority of the players had when confronted with those well reported weaknesses of the system.

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If the devs chose to include that feature I would not object to it. I'd even welcome it. Until such time as they do, though, it is part of the specification for all MA projects that they are accessible to groups of all sizes, including size 1, and should scale reasonably to both group size and difficulty setting. Attempting to subvert that is simply bad design, whether or not the intent to do is printed on the label.

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I know what your position is, but I do not really understand why you occupy it.

While you are much more likely to appeal to a larger group of people if you design with level 29 Emp/Elec soloists and 8 man mixed teams in mind, I see nothing wrong with designing a story arc with the intention of requiring a MSTF type team. Ignoring the audience of people who might want that latter content does not seem to be a design requirement for a good MA arc.

Just because anyone may walk up and attempt your arc does not mean you must make it so that anyone can complete it.

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Diablo Navarra's pseudo-Fire Imps gone. He hired some Freaks to cover his back instead.

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Interesting change, what prompted it? The fire mobs looked good on that map, although they were a bit mundane to fight (on a small team at least).

Although the existence of the fire guys seemed at odds with the description of Navarra lacking magic of his own, even thought they were kind of explained as following him around for the joy of destruction. I guess their premise was kind of thin.