The_Alt_oholic

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You can solo all the way to 50. Some AT/build combos may solo slower than others...

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I'll back this.

--
But I see soloing as the "last option" in this game - especially since it is an MMORPG and not a single player platform game.

I think it is much more fun to play this game as part of a team ...most of the time.

There are some players that I don't get along with/don't like their play-style and/or players just don't know how to play and just rush into every mob regardless.
These kind of players are few and far between.

I find the majority of players in the game to be a friendly and helpful group of gamers that are great fun to game with.

There are many advantages to being on a team. The DEVs went out of their way to make the game easier for teams and to give advantages to players that are on teams.

For those that don't know it, there are xp bonuses for teams that have 4 members and an additional xp bonus for teams that have 8 members.

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While the game is more about the journey than the destination, there's pretty cool stuff to do at 50, too.

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This pretty much sums it up.

If your goal is just to be Uber and Uber with Uber-iness, then I don't think CoX is for game for you.

If you want to be super and fight crime (*sigh* or a villain and cause trouble), then come join the fun.

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Do items ever come into play or is it all for show a vanity?

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I find this vanity question a bit odd (as it seems to be about enhancements and insps) as vanity usually refers to visible things. When you look at a character, you can't "see" their enhancements or insps.

Crafted costume parts are definitely "visual" items and they are definitely about vanity. Crafted costume parts do not effect powers, though some costume parts have effects based on powers and/or actions.

Being able to wear a full cape because you have completed a mission at level 20 is definitely about vanity. The cape does not effect any of your powers.

The whole costume creator is about vanity. No costume parts effect your powers.

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1. Is any of the very lowby content (pre-20 missions) something I want to do for the sake of knowing what is going on in the CoH universe?

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Sure. All the contacts and arcs give you info on the world. It depends on if you want to know it or not.


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2. Are there any 'must do' sorts of things pre-20? Or is it just a grind? I'm not being derrogetory, I literally don't know the answer.

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There are tons of things to do. You do not need to farm your way to 20.

Atlas, Galaxy, Kings Row, the Hollows, Perez Park, Steel Canyon, and Skyway City are all pre-level 20 zones.

There are many "normal" arcs to do from contacts.
There are police missions to do Kings Row, Steel Canyon, and Skyway City.
There is a "police like" contact (actual contact, does not use radio, but functions the same) in the Hollows where you can do Hollows-style police missions.

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3. Is there a 'right way' to progress through CoH? typically I skip Kings Row because I can go to Hollows... what would I miss there? Is that a bad idea? See? I'm confused. Is it more free, or is there a good/better/best way to go through the content.

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The wrong way is to get power-leveled or farm your way through to the higher levels. If you are exploiting the game, you are playing it the "wrong" way.
I skip the Hollows and go to Kings Row and run Police missions so I can get the Raptor Pack and/or jump pack temp travel powers. The content in the Hollows is fun and I have run it many times.
It is a bad idea to miss content if you want to know everything about the game. The main question is - "are you having fun?"
I like PuG-ing and experiencing the game in a kind of free and open manner. I alt-jump and server-jump a lot. So I'm always a different AT, level, or side. Some of the content kind of gets a bit blurred for me.
The best way to go through the content is the way that you enjoy it the most. For me that means teaming up and playing challenging missions.

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My gut says this stuff, while entertaining, isn't essential to progress through the story of CoH. But maybe I'm wrong.

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What's that?
Missing out on information is missing out on information. If you want to know everything, then you have to work to run all the content. Some of the enemy groups don't show up any more after level 20, so if you don't fight them/run their arcs early - the only way to play those missions would be to exemplar down or run them in the Ouroboros flashback system.

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Should I just try to get those and not worry about the rest of the little missions?

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That's up to you or your team to decide.

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Some games tend to hand-hold you through go here go there... CoH seems more open and that's fine. I just want to know once and for all if I'll be missing chunks of story.

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If you don't do all the missions for all of the archetypes, then you will be missing out on parts of the story.

There are lots of complete arcs in the lower levels. It is quite easy to out level some contacts while running ones for another contact.

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City of Heroes not only gets a mention, but a nice screenshot to boot.

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Yeah, that was a pretty funny choice of a picture to go along with that.

<ul type="square">[*]Gravity/Bubble Controller[/list](Gravity) He runs around enemies super punching them so often from every conceivable angle that it holds them in place. (Bubbles)The character is so fast that he runs around other members of the team knocking stuff out of the air. (Speed) Yeah, he punches really fast too. (Fighting) He knows how to fist fight.
I have several of these each on different servers.

<ul type="square">[*]Kin/Rad Defender[/list](Kinetics) He was exposed to radiation that mutated him and he can run really fast now. (Rad) As another side effect, he's able to project radiation into his opponents.

<ul type="square">[*]Gravity/Kin Controller[/list](Gravity) Controls and manipulates torsional motion. (Kin) Yeah, controls and manipulates...and redistributes torsional motion

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Like exploiting the SK system to get free XP for standing in a doorway while the rest of team (minus the SK and his babysitter) kills full-team-sized spawns +8 to you?

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It is a long known exploit. I agree something needs to be done about that kind of thing as well. Especially, when other players are pulled in as filler and then kicked from the team as soon as an outdoor map is populated.

...there goes ...a.....nother one.......

I play lower leveled characters some. I character and server jump a lot. I PuG about 95% of the time.

I do try to help players out and teach them new things when I'm playing the lower levels.

Yesterday I was on a level 14 or so team in Steel Canyon. Another person was leader, and we ran the second Midnighter arc mission that I had set to rugged.

I'm playing a Scrapper. There was a controller, a sk'd up defender, and a blaster on the team. The leader is looking for more.
Just inside the door, we set up. There is a good sized mob of Lost. The leader is ready to go. I asked the team strategy, and it was not to die. And the ranged fire started. So I cornered it and nailed one with the vet Nem Staff and fell back behind the corner to wait for them to start to close.
I think it was the blaster that rushed in. I tried to go into cover, but there were too many and the blaster was in too far. He was cut down right away. I had to start falling back toward the others. No heals happening that I have seen. I attack the ones that are around the controller and the defender, but they were shooting down the hall or something. The defender goes down. I turn to fight, but I'm at about 1/4 health. The Controller starts going down and I door'ed it.
More players are recruited. We go in again. I try to convince them to help me set up a pull trap so that I could keep the Lost mez'er facing me and away from them. They don't want to listen. Another scrapper joins the team. We manage to get through about 4 groups and the other scrapper rushes down the hall and agros two groups. More rushing in and splatterage. I'm yelling to fall back, and they are to some extent. They are too many and are over running the group and the I think me and one other character were still up. We fall back all the way to the door, I think one fell in route.
The whining starts about how rugged is too hard and we can't do the mission. I said that I had soloed the last one on rugged and that I was going to go an start my own team if we needed to set the diff down.
Leader recruits some more, we go back in and two characters are still laying face down on the ground. We yell to them, but no answer - leader kicks them after sending tells to them to send tells to get a re-invite when they come back.
We went back in. Set up pulls for the first group, told them to target through me and it went down so smoothly. The next group is a rush in. Team gets banged up pretty bad a couple fall, and we need to fall back.
More whining about the diff and how it will go to slow if we pull all the time - note :: there is still no tank on the team and the defender and other scrapper are gone. I think we get another defender at this point. I talk them into doing the pulls and it won't be that bad.
It goes smoothly through a group or two and then we get a tank. The tank sees what I'm doing and rolls with the plan. lure them back to where he is and he grabs them. I race back down to where he is to set up the line. We start decimating. (note since the tank isn't rushing in, the others aren't rushing in any more).
The Boss goes down easy. Everyone on the team leveled. I gained almost a level and 1/2 xp from the mission (I had patrol Xp rolling the whole time).
Team breaks up.

I'm not sure if they newer players learned anything or not, but we did show them what team work was about regardless if they could understand what was going on or not. I tried to explain somethings and the leader started chiming in a bit with info as well.

The point is that we were trying to mentor/teach some newer players, but the question is also "Do newer players want to be taught/mentored?"

I have run into many players that they think that they know how to play CoX because they have played WoW a lot. They tend to be pretty arrogant about it too. It's hard to mentor/teach players that fall into this category as their preconceived notions of the game mechanics hampers their ability to look at what is going on logically.
They don't want to admit that rushing-in is not the only tactic. The Tanker-centric team is not the only kind of team.

I'm off the subject, time for me to stop....

Yes, I try to mentor/teach new players as they are willing to accept information.

Arc ID 232506: DEV d'Arc

- When the Statesman's marvelous view of a new world falls through, the decides it is time to remake the world in his own image by creating a world filled with his own champions -

It's a conspiracy all right. A conspiracy that actually started on the Champion server ... or should I say the "unofficial" Champions server.... known to a chosen few as "Earth-1" ...

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Maybe change it so that when you gender bend it applies to all character slots not just 1 costume slot. Is it possible if we can get some kind of Dev clarification on this issue plz?

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Uh, that's like giving you 2 costume changes for free per slot.
I also don't understand how that changes the "cross-dressing" or transsexual aspect of the rest of your discussion.

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TEEN
Titles rated T (Teen) have content that may be suitable for ages 13 and older. Titles in this category may contain violence, suggestive themes, crude humor, minimal blood, simulated gambling, and/or infrequent use of strong language.
MATURE
Titles rated M (Mature) have content that may be suitable for persons ages 17 and older. Titles in this category may contain intense violence, blood and gore, sexual content and/or strong language.

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Part of the problem here is that there are many children that play this game that aren't even 13 years old.

We all know that once a game goes "online" the "experiences may vary" tag line goes up immediately. Mature content is only a "text line" away at any point in time.

What is the "rating" on Ranma 1/2 (boxes show NR)?
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranma_%C2%BD )

Face it, some Tanks are axe-welding maniacs ... and literally act like it while they are rushing around hacking up the enemy. Mastermind summon undead armies to puke on enemies. (One my masterminds poisons her henchmen at the end of every mission.)
There is a lot of content in the game that stretches the Teen rating, and many parent that don't care what the rating is on the game.

I understand your concern "in general". I don't find this situation any different than any of the other "questionable" issue in regards to the rating system.

I can definitely see some strange reactions happening when someone is RP'ing-up (or whatever the hip lingo is) with a female that suddenly changes into a man or vice-versa, but I'm sure there is a lot of that going on already at any rate.

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So wait, tell me, why do we even have travel powers? I barely see people in hazard zones, so that one is out.

I get it, some people want a "natural" hero but doesn't mean it should make it so people can skip travels altogether and save the power selection for something else.

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I have a couple of "natural" characters that get along quite well with just the fitness travel pool. Most characters end up getting Stamina anyway.

Yet still, I'm against the "buses" idea.
It might as well be an inter-zone "mission teleporter".

I did a satire post on this very subject a while back when this idea was brought up before.

Search-fu powers, activate!

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Virtue has tons of real CC's. ....best Marvel, best DC, these happen all the time. ...

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I certainly hope not. That would be against the EULA and endangering our beloved game.

I enjoy playing a character more at the lower levels - especially below level 40.
It is not a burden for me to experience the "hero's journey" with a different kind of character ... or even basically the same kind of character on a different server.

Have fun at level 50, just don't do it in the lower level zones.

I'm going to play the game.

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Nope they learned the hard way. . . NEVER, NEVER release an Issue on a Friday.

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I suspect a Thursday before a holiday where a majority of employees will be on vacation starting Friday so that there can be an unsupervised long holiday weekend of glitches and abuse....but I guess I'm being pessimistic...

It may be a challenge, but we are heroes. We live to fight adversity!

Light the fireworks!

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(I'm sure that a lot of people will not agree with me on this topic, but this is my opinion about it.)

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I do not agree that it has ruined the game and I don't agree that the AE should be for level 50's only, but I do agree with everything else.

They AE has the potential to pole vault this game far beyond what any other MMORPG is capable of. I think that the true core audience of this super MMORPG can make the AE sing the song it was intended to sign with a glorious sound.

That sound is being drowned out by the clanking of gears on the insides of mechanized farms that have nothing to do with a MMORPG -- for they are nothing more harvesting machines and power-leveling tools.

[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfHlA3fmJG0 ]

The difference should be clear.

Either use the AE as a tool to creatively build and experience
- or -
You can become a slave of the machine.

btw, Farmers, welcome to the Machine.

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I have been playing CoH/CoV for well over 4 years now and have seen a lot of changes to the game, the zones and the missions. Though I peruse the forums, I have never really posted anything here - until now...

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I wish you would have posted before.

I didn't join the forums as soon as I started playing, and I certainly didn't start to contribute to the forums until I was miffed enough to do so either.

They say that we that post at the forums are a minority and that we don't have much impact, but I don't see that being the case regards to the impact that forumites have on the game - our City. We are the City's citizens - we are the population.

We need your help to keep this a super game.
Please post about the things that you feel are important, but remember to use your search-fu first. Many of the "new" threads that pop-up have come up multiple times already.

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IMO, The AE system as it currently is, has wrecked this game for me. The AE has made more players who have no clue about how to use their characters powers and has made more people more concerned about PL'ing than about actually playing the game. For new players, the fact that the only team that they can find is an AE team in Atlas further exacerbates this problem - this is only teaching the new players that CoH is only about doing AE missions and PL'ing. It is virtually impossible to get a normal mission team nowadays at any level.

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Take a moment to breath.
There are "normal" teams running, and not all of the AE content is farms.
If you can't find a team, start one. If you can't find enough players in your level range try switching characters (levels) and/or servers. Don't forget that the [Help] channel is accessible by using /hc [message]. If you call out that you are looking for a "normal" mission team on the [Help] channel you may get people willing to team with you.
If you remember, the [Help] channel tends to be watched by friendly, helpful players that like the game. A lot of this group of people like the game because it is an super MMORPG and not because it can be farmed or abused to PL characters.

If I player feeds you any garbage, simply state that you need "help" finding a non-AE team and isn't this the [Help] channel?

I know that I would be willing to accept a sk or switch characters to run "normal" content with you.

I'm on all the servers - on both sides of all of them.

If you are on Freedom, it seems time to jump ship. But I haven't been over there lately because all the farm broadcasts set me off and I don't have enough room in my ignore list to keep all these freaking farmers ignored.
(thankful, they can be 1 starred so I can punish them by not teaming with them if they suddenly decide they want to play normal content. Harsh, but they deserve more punishment than they are getting from the DEVS IMHO.
Once you 1 star a farmer, make sure that your options are set to show stars so that one star hanging over there head lets you know what kind of scum they are as soon as you see them.
It is unfortunate that the DEVs still have not added the "star" system to the search menu.)

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The AE system is ridiculous. IMO, the AE buildings should be moved out of the lower level zones and should be for level 50 players ONLY.

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Here is my idea. It keeps an MA in the lower zones and usable by all level characters, but restricts characters that are above a zone's level spread from using it.

https://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthre...ue#Post13595973

I've also pointed out that putting the "main" AE training contact in the lower zones was done with out any fore-thought of what it could cause. Obviously, it immediately lured higher level characters to the lowest level zones for training and, well, I'm sure you can see how the dominoes of abuse logic start falling rapidly at that point...

If you start in Galaxy, the mission arcs send you to Atlas anyway....

I used to hunt the lake in Atlas until level 4-5 and then go hunt the lake in Galaxy until 7-8 and then head to Kings.

Now I just hunt in Atlas until 5 and then go to Kings Row and start police missions for the raptor pack!

They are veteran rewards for a reason.
As you have noted, they are greatly sought; therefore, a worthy prize for those of us that pay to play the game for a long period of time.

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for the dev vision of the game
or
for the players vision of the game

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It really needs to be a balance of the two.
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The DEVs need to have their "vision" of the game in order to be able to explore their own creativity, to keep it balanced, and to keep it profitable.
(I see basic functionality being thrown out the window sometimes when it really needs to be one of the number one priorities. At least a smoothly functioning game should be part of the DEVs "vision", but I'm a player making this point...so....)
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The DEVs do need to be cognizant of players visions of the game.
The problem here is which players visions of the game. There are many more of us than there are of them and each of us has our own vision of what the game should be.
This imposes a daunting task balancing the DEVs "vision" (see above) while trying to incorporate ideas that are sought by a majority of players that help to achieve the DEVs "vision" goals.
-
By giving us the MA, we have been given a great opportunity to make the game what we want it to be. After all, "content" is what the game is about - and that is all the "MA" is about.
At the same time, the MA must perform within the DEVs "vision". This includes it not being abused to the point that it means less profitability and impedes the longevity of the game.

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Think I've mentioned before, that when extreme scarcity is introduced, it opens the door for RMT traders.

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The fact is that RMT'rs were here long before Purple IO sets.

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When I can work 4 hours and make enough cash to buy a billion INF, or I can marketeer for 20 hours to get the same amount, or farm myself for 40 hours to do the same, which is less "work?"

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Using your numbers, the equation seems like this to me.

[(4 hours of real world work)+(supporting RMT's)+(possible character deletion)+(possible account banning)] =

[(20 hours of marketing by supplying other characters what they want at a price they are willing to pay)+(possible badges for marketing)+(PvP'ing against other Marketers)] =

[(40 hours of farming)+(If in AE/MA, possible banning)+(boring repetition)]

I'll take Marketing for the win, but I'm not after purples either.

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I have never bought INF, but I know people who have. They value these virtual items enough to pay real money for them, and value their time highly enough that "grinding" to get them is unpleasant.

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Or it is much easier to "Catch'em All" now than actually work to achieve a goal.

That is to say, I don't think it is so much a "valuing their time" issue as it is "wanting something" and "wanting to have it now".

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When RMT becomes a problem in your game, your reward system is borked.

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Cheaters cheat as long as they can cheat.
Abusers abuse as long as there is something to abuse.

The RMT's don't just sell inf, the also sell PL'ing.

So you are saying that any system that has levels has a "borked" reward system. Part of having increased cost/obscurity of items in a game is a function of the level system as well.

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When people would rather work at a real job to get things than play your game to earn them, the reward system is not functioning properly.

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Or they players are jaded or brats.

Jaded by gaming and wanting to achieve without really playing a game.

Brats by wanting something now instead of working to get it.

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And the more broken your reward system is, the more of a problem RMT will become for you.

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Actually, the more people pay RMT'rs, the more a problem they will become for you.

It is greed and the "have to have it now" attitude by players that can lead them to paying RMT'rs.

You don't need purples to play this game.

When you get a purple, it should be really cool to get it. "I found a diamond!"

It shouldn't be "I'm all Purpled out on my 50. I'm so cool."

Players are distracted from what makes a game fun.
Play the game for the fun of it.
Purples are just not that important.

But believe me, when I get a purple I craft it and sell it for as much as I think the market can pay because

"There is a sucker born every minute" - P.T. Barnum.

So, do you still want to "Catch'em All!"

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Again, the point I'm making is that there was balance in capability.

All characters in Champions had access to the same damage output, the damae defenses, the same everything, whatever the style of the character. The reason was equivalency. An Energy Blast that did 12d6 damage was equivalent to a punch that did 12d6 damage.

CoH doesn't allow for this. Different ATs have different levels of defense and offense. When you have this situation, it's more difficult (not saying impossible) to establish balance. That's all I'm saying.

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Well as far as Champions the RPG goes, it had a great balance system - too bad they threw the system out the window when the were "creating" Champions Online. I use the word "created" loosely as the entire game is built on the framework that was to be Marvel Universe Online ...as far as I can tell. Taking a great RPG systems name and slapping it onto a hunk of garbage does not turn that hunk of garbage into something great.
As far as I'm concerned - Champions Online is the Super-MMORPG-that-can-not-be-named.



I'm glad that you admit that there should be/needs to be a balance.

With an archetype system the balance is tended to by power availability related to archetypes.

To keep Tanks balanced with the other archetypes, they should not be given greater damage or more ranged attacks.

In my opinion, Tanks are already more powerful than most - if not all - the other archetypes.

Don't bother trying to punch-provoke me, without Taunt, any archetype with greater damage output can pull the agro away from you.

Nice videos, but hyping "kill them all missions"?!

Come on!
That's the worse conceived mission objective ever.
We all know how hard finding that "last" guy in a mission can be.
Prompting people to use it in a video about how to use the system to make a mission is irresponsible is far as I'm concerned.
Luckily, I check the briefings before I play and, therefore, can avoid arcs with "kill them all" as any mission objective.

Needless to say, there are plenty more like me that hate seeing "kill them all" come up as part of normal game content....let alone in the MA/AE system.

It seems to be working as designed.
If anything, there are too many purples around.
Purples are supposed to be Uniques - aka Ultra-Rares.
These things are not supposed to be easy to come by.


I'm not for jacking up prices, but - hey - the price is what the market can bear. It is too bad that there are so many RMT's out there and that someone will be paying cash for a purple going for 180+ mil inf, but that is the awful truth.

Your inf gain is probably also the gain of an RMT/gold-farmer.

Market PvP powers activated!

I see why you are called "Poopy"

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6) Many long story arcs are simply plain bad, too challenging, have too many objectives, are using annoying maps and annoying mobs, have too much text , too many ambushes, too many AVs, finally just too much of everything and that makes them pure PITA to run. They get an auto 1 star from me.

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If I understand this correctly, you "grief" rate long missions simply based on the length of the mission?

I certainly hope you don't go out of your way to run longer missions in order to "grief" rate them.

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That's a list of criteria and you boiled that down to one thing? I don't think you understand that at all.

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This is all one paragraph and a complete thought that ends with "They get an auto 1 star from me." related to what was said earlier in that paragraph.
I did not find a need to respond to the information in the rest of the post.

The rest of the post was an opinion, and I started the thread to gather opinions.
The part of the post that I replied to regarded grief'ing players that created longer missions by automatically one starring them simply because it is a longer mission.
I'm not sure how "They get an auto 1 star from me." can be translated differently. It is a knee jerk reaction due to the length of the mission.

As far as I'm concerned 1 starring something regardless of content based on the length of the mission is grief'ing.

I certainly hope players don't think it is all right to go around 1 starring missions for the heck of it. You should have a very good reason before 1 starring a mission.

1 starring a mission due to the mission length is wrong. period. It is grief'ing.

I hope I made this clear enough so that you can understand.
It was pretty clear in the original post, but apparently you don't understand that last paragraph holds all the information in regards to the final statement :: "They get an auto 1 star from me.

Did the person that I quoted intend that comment to be related to All Longer Missions?

I don't know. I posted two sentences in a reply to this.
1) I asked a question in regards to the quoted and bold text segment.
2) I made a statement in regards to what I thought about the kind of behavior that I thought that they were using.

I certainly hope that you don't go out of your way to grief people either.