Tog

Long before Issue 14, like maybe 12, I've had similar issues with the Arbiter in the Faultline arc.

The first mission you meet him in, the second one with Fusionette against the Lost AV, he summons his drones them starts to fight with them. I've had it happen solo and teamed, but not every time. As soon as he's able to do so, he summons them again and they behave.

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2 points!

1. 6 slotting AM is a waste of slots when you can slot end/recharges later on.

2. Irradiate is fantastic, while the ticking damage seems like an issue its actually an advantage on occasion. Several enemy powers can be interrupted by it. As for the "draws too much agg thing", thats only an issue if a) your in a team, and b.) the teams aggro magnet is rubbish. I've never had irradiate strip aggro of anyone.

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Point 1- That's probably true. I don't plan builds around sets though. If I get a good one, I'll use it, but my alt to inf ration just doesn't support the use of them.

Point 2- On a Rad/Rad, both toggles will also interrupt those powers for much less end and in a more controlled way. I think it's a great power, just not an early one. Too many people think it's going to be a like fireball. It's not a nuke. It's not even fireball. You don't pop it and watch the bodies fall. That was all I meant.

My aggro experiences were based on a team. Solo you get it all anyway. Every time I used it, I drew a lot of fire, and since it was a PBAoE, a lot of that was melee.

Accelerate Metabolism is a must if you go rad. You'll want it 6 slotted. You may not be able to, but it's worth trying for. 3 recharge and 3 end Mod. Recharge first. With Hasten you can have AM up most of the time time once you get Single Origins. I've got one defender and one controller with AM and both have hasten. I don't normally take hasten.

Irradiate isn't a nuke. It's X Ray Beam as a PBAoE. Damage isn't really any better than a first tier blast from other sets, it's just that it hits everything around you. Another issue with it is the damage is done in ticks over time. Instead of 40 damage, it does 5 then 5 then 5 then 5 and so on. That's time for most mobs to get off at least one shot at you, and because of the debuff, there is a lot of hate coming your way. I'd seriously put it off until you get N Blast. The Def debuff in Irradiate will basically add 1 SO Acc to the attack. Irradiate also takes a lot of end, and with the toggles running, you're looking at a very low recovery rate to start with. Basically, until you get a good followup for it, irradiate is a lot like shooting a beehive with a rubber band. It won't do much besides bring you pain.

O2 boost is of limited use on for a soloist. By limited, I mean none. On a team it's a different story as explained above.

I've got a defender that is Dark Blast/Rad that just hit 47 today, and a Dark Miasma defender at 50. I also take radiation blast a lot, but never seem to get it past 20.

So here it goes:

Take both N bolt and X-ray to start out. If you want to respec out of one later you can. With Dual Builds you can just change to the final build at anytime after level 10. The reason for this is that there aren't that many single target attacks in the lower Rad Blast levels, and the AoE's take huge amounts of endurance for what seems to be little damage. The think about N bolt is that you can set it to autofire and still have a net gain of endurance if that's all you use. It doesn't do a lot of damage, but it recharges so fast and uses to little endurance it's almost like a toggle. In the upper levels Rad Blast has 1 cone and 3 AoEs if you count the Nuke.

Flying has a definite advantage. There are a lot of blind alleys you can avoid that way. On the other hand, Superspeed has stealth. With the temp powers from bank jobs and a jetpack salesman in Grandville willing to sell to anyone with 10K to spare, I'll give the edge to super speed. You can fly a little when you need to through other means. back to the first hand. Flying is wicked fun.

Radiation feels low on damage output in the early game for me. That's a big reason I've never gotten very high with it. Solo, it could be an issue. Of course, there are a few powers from Dark that are a little on the weak side in the early levels too. I don't think either really has an advantage over the other.

Stamina. I'm going to say Yes. Stamima is required on either of them. Why? The Rad secondary has two toggles and a tier 9 power that stops end recover for a time after use. Dark has two toggles, one of which will be up just about all the time. Since both primaries have big AoE options, both use a lot of End.

I'd like to suggest my guide for new players. In the powerset section is a description of the powers and some personal views on them based on my own dealings with them. The address is in my sig, but since the forum software keeps changing my tags I can't make it a link.

Stupid forum software.

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I would like to clear up some of the sequence of events for you. The ship was McCord's from the start. His plan was to hire the Raiders to scuttle the ship, but the Council got to it first. That was the comment in the opening briefing about there being another group that he didn't really trust.

The goal of the second mission was to gather a crew. A group of warehouse workers seemed a reasonable choice. I missed the level cap though.

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Oh, I realize the reason inside of the plot for the first two missions, don't get me wrong. However, the first two missions themselves really only served as intermissions of violence between mission briefings. The missions themselves didn't add anything to the story, and didn't increase my enjoyment of the story. Hence, the missions felt like fluff.

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Ahh, okay. I understand that then. Point taken.

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My issues with the plot is that no matter how I play out his plan in my head, it doesn't make any sense. I figured the two possible scenarios were that A: He was trying to get the insurance money or B: He is trying to kill me. If he's trying to get the insurance money, then he doesn't really need my help if he's got the Sky Raiders on the job. And even if the Council stole it out from under the Sky Raiders, then he would get the insurance money.

However, if he's trying to get the insurance money, then why is he getting a crew? I mean, he was trying to have the sky raiders scuttle it earlier. If getting the crew was to lend a sense of legitimacy and make it not look like fraud, then shouldn't that have been the first mission?

Then we come to the third mission, where he wants me to stop the Sky Raiders from taking the ship. Again, if the plan is to get the insurance money, then he should have just let the Sky Raiders do it, and not had me on board.

Then we come to the fourth mission, where he shows up to stop me himself and blow up the ship with me on it. Here's where I really think that he's just trying to kill me, and trying to do it in the most roundabout way possible. The only problem is, I haven't done anything to make him want to kill me, and if he's getting paid to do it, the story arc doesn't say.

That's more or less the problem. Nothing is really explained all that well. Now, I like to think that I'm a pretty smart guy, but even if I'm dead wrong and I'm a completely average person, I should be able to figure out your plot by what is in the story arc, not by having you explain it to me afterward.

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That all comes down to my failure to explain it properly. For the record, I never expected this to get good marks. I'm used to a much different style of writing.

His plan was to have insurance policies on the crew as well. That's why he needed them, and I thought there was text to that effect at the end. The Sky Raiders were put in to limit the levels in the first mission, so their explained purpose was to be the first group that was hired to do the job the player is actually doing. The player was the one set up to take the blame for it all.

I was hoping a review would highlight the problems, but I'm a little surprised at what they turned out to be.

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Arc #26420: Now Hiring
Rating: 2 stars
The short of it: Hardly a plot, and what is there makes no sense, missions that feel like fluff, annoying custom enemies


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Thanks for the review. I have to be honest in that there are a few things in it I take exception too, but on the whole I guess it comes down to my failure to make it clear.

I would like to clear up some of the sequence of events for you. The ship was McCord's from the start. His plan was to hire the Raiders to scuttle the ship, but the Council got to it first. That was the comment in the opening briefing about there being another group that he didn't really trust.

The goal of the second mission was to gather a crew. A group of warehouse workers seemed a reasonable choice. I missed the level cap though.

The Third mission was an attempt by the Raiders to complete the contract they failed to do in the first mission. They knew where the ship was, so it wasn't unreasonable for them to think that getting it to the Caribbean was a stretch.

The last one was McCord's actual army, sent in to do the job right. The ship being 2000 miles south of the Caribbean wasn't a mistake. It was an outright lie.

The two things I wanted to do with this arc was to see if I could create a balanced custom group. And to see if I could pass off a contact that is underhanded and deceitful from the start, without making it seem that way until the last minute.

It turns out there was a third, unintended thing that got tested.

I'm sort of surprised you had that much trouble with the custom group though? What was your difficulty set to? I ran it with a Brute, a Scrapper, and a MM, without much trouble on the first setting.

What I really don't get is the "Defeat all" hate. Ships aren't that big, and the warehouse was the smallest, most direct map I could find. Is simply having a mission goal listed as "defeat all" such an issue? I could see it in the Atta Cave or those big office, or cave maps. Would the advise be to just completely avoid the use of the Kill all option in every circumstance? No exceptions? If so, then what alternatives could there be in the first two missions where the ultimate goals were to capture a ship and capture the crew?

At any rate, I do appreciate the your taking the time to try the arc and write this up. I knew it wasn't my best work going in.

I think Hell-o-Ween has my #13579 on his list.

I've got three others finished now.

26420 is a Villain arc for 20-30/35 that I expect to do poorly since there are two defeat alls and 3/4 of the missions are on a ship, but the story pretty much requires it.

75249 is a neutral arc for the 8-20 crowd.

101011 (stupid lag) is a gameplay tutorial for level 1/2 on up. Lousy story really, but that's not really the point of this one. The NPC's explain pulling, Buffs, and Anchors in the first mission. From there it moves on.

I'm open for a review on any or all of them.

Use Clues. then have the exit pop up say something like "What's that stuck to your foot? Could it be a CLUE?"

Yes I've actually done that.

I got my newbie arc up today.

Tog's Newbie Academy
Arc # 101011 (stupid lag)
Hellions and Skulls, so levels 1-14.

This is aimed at new players and uses the MA to explain thing pulling and anchors, as well as the different types of hostages and Glowies.

There are allies in all missions, though they are all optional except for the very end of mission 1 and two escorts in mission three will fight. It took some serious trial and error to find maps that work with the ally spawning method I used.

Mission s 4 and 5 each have a boss fight, but you also have three optional allies in each.

I went in at level 2 and came out at 5.5. I think with no allies, I could have hit 6 pretty easily.

I ran the Magi Vault arc yesterday and really liked it. I did get killed in mission three, but the map was small enough that I was able to get back in and wait for them to thin each other out a bit.

I just accepted that Magi uses the same background checking service that every agency on 24 does. That really wasn't a sticking point for me.



If the definition of "just a bunch of stuff that happened" is really no moral, then I'd think that would describe the bulk of the game content. There are very few arcs that I can think of that take a moral stand on anything. "Smoke and Mirrors" would be one that does, and that's part of what makes the story so engrossing. The rest of the arcs though, even the really popular ones, seem to fall into the JABSTH category.

In my own arcs, the two I have listed both have a moral element to the story, though one has it pretty hidden. The others I have planed don't. Then again, I don't know that a good story has to have a moral message.

Mine is up now. It's actually level 8 to 20, but if you can take a Gold Bricker you can run the arc. 2 Missions can be stealthed, but defeating most of the stuff on the way to the back should be pretty lucrative.

Arc# 75249 "Treasure Hunt"

I don't have them done yet, but I've got two in the works. One is specifically intended to be a new tutorial on how to play that explains pulling, buffs, and anchors. The second is an arc with mobs that span levels 8 to 20. I'm just having a hard time with part of the end of it.

I have one that has two defeat all's back to back. One on a ship. Because of the nature of the story, there was no other way to do it.

Another I played was set back in the first Ritki Invasion. The goal was to hold your little patch of ground. It was the same map as the Psy-Clockwork King. That's a nasty map for a defeat all, but the purpose of the mission was to stop the invasion. There's not really a good story based way to do that and still leave some standing.

The EB/AV thing I agree with completely. In fact, I think I may need to adjust my "Now Hiring" arc. I can't recall if the last guy is an EB or just a boss.

Same with the souvenir. By the time the mission is over, and the souvenir read, there should be no question at all what actually happened in the arc. No loose ends.

One note on Minions and radiation infection though. Last time I tried to give Rad to a custom, Rad Infection was the only power available to minions. I'm hoping that's changed.

I don't think my two are in a queue yet.

13579 & 26420, the first is more of s story based thing while the second is more of a go at a standard city type mission arc.

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Primary and secondary powers can be set seperatly have you tried setting the secondary to AR Standard or even something weak like Willpower or regen standard?

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A word of warning using Willpower as the secondary It gives customs Sniper-like perception. It's really hard not to aggro multiple groups of Willpower foes.

The system I've been trying to stick to is this:

Everyone gets three stars by default. Story can swing that by 1 star. Fun factor can swing it by one. That gives it the full 1 to 5 range.

I got the rating tell on both of my arcs as well. Each had the exact same wording. That's not the best way to get me to review something. Actual feedback is.

I've currently got two of them up.

Arc #13579 (love that number) is a heroic, story driven arc about a kid that wants to become a hero. Story Title is "Falling Through the Cracks". The first mission caps at 14, the next 2 cap at 30, and the last two cap at 50.

Arc# 26420 is a Villain arc that takes has three missions that cap around 30-35, then the fourth is capped at 50. The last mission has a custom group that will take a little getting used to.

I'm currently writing mystery shorts for publication in a couple of magazines, so I'm far more interested in feedback on the story. Especially what I can do to improve it.

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Heh, I was born in 87.

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Heh, I graduated high school in '88. I have doodles older than you

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Wait, I'm confused. Press-Event? Is NCSoft actually spending some cash on marketing the game now?

There's not a comet about to hit earth that I haven't heard about is there?

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There was actually. It was the size of Texas and missed us by about half the distance form here to the moon....

I don't think it's related though!

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It was only a 10-story building but it was a LOT closer than that. It missed us by about 50,000 miles. The Moon is 240,000 miles away.
Link

*inhaler puff*



BTW, if the release date given in one of those reviews Ex Posted on the 4th is accurate, 14 will be here a LOT sooner than April 7th.

Objective:
I run a lot of alts. Recipes, INF, and enhancements are all commodities which can be traded. Merits cannot. Before Issue 13, I could run a TF on any character, and trade the rewards to whoever needs it. This is no longer an option.

Subjective:
The number one change I would like to see is the ability to consolidate merits to a single character. Under the current system, it feels like those who play numerous characters are being punished for not focusing on a single one. This seems to go strongly against previously stated design goals, including the ability to buy additional character slots in bulk, and the very concept of global chat. Everything about the game's design seems to encourage alternate characters.

Except the Merit System.

For the same reason they run off before they can be bubbled?

A melee player (could include blappers) hears the sound of a power firing. That means the fight has started, so they rush in to attack. Being number three on the list, they get the buff just about 1/2 way to the mobs and zoom off. That player has no idea that the sound they heard was a buff, and to the rest of the team, the the guy that ran off was in the wrong.

A lot of people do it when My Fire Troller casts smoke, or a TA uses Flash Arrows. They see or hear an "attack" and react to it.

When I play any char that has single target buffs, I'll announce that buffs are going out if we're standing, or I'll wait until the fight has started to do them. It doesn't always work.

Thanks all.

If I interpret the replies correctly, I can pretty much rationalize any way I want to do it. Is that right?

Is there any established idea for how a person's personality might change after merging with a Kheldian?

I'm thinking about a woman that sort of half falls for a Hero, then becomes a Peacbringer years later. Would the joining affect her emotional state at all? Would it be different if she were a Warshade?

Tried the "ask a Dev" route when I first had the question. Of the three names, I tried two, neither replied, the third has never replied to me that I can recall.

I've got a really long story developing over on the COH Writers Guild site. An upcoming chapter features some reflections on Boomtown. It's nothing major, and I could change it if it's wrong, but I like the way it came out. So here is the question:

After Boom was hit in the initial invasion, were the people that died in the zone recovered, or are they all still there, under the rubble?

The way it reads, and from the looks, there has been no recovery done, and that works well for the character I'm doing. If there is some official word that says there was a recovery done, prior to January 2007, I need to change the story a bit.

I've asked two devs that I thought were in a good position to know, but there has been no reply. I figure here is the next closest "official" word.