Double XP - Aftermath

The Melodist (energy/sonic corruptor) 4 --> 17
Jack Royale (gravity/storm controller) 40 --> 41
'Ware Wolf (martial arts/energy aura stalker) 37 --> 38
Dragonsmoke (claws/super reflexes scrapper) 1 --> 20

All told, about 34 levels in a weekend. Not too shabby. And it was nice to get a level on Jack and the Wolf, neither of which have seen a trainer for a while. Jack's going to get his epic. Based on the RP of how his power works, I'm going with earth mastery. Should be fun. :)

And a new mid-level scrapper to play with. :)

Double XP - Aftermath

Vagabond Magus (Fire/FF Controller): 40 --> 41
Vagabond Knight (Shield/Fire Tank): 36 --> 40
Captain Peterson (AR/Energy Blaster): 37 --> 39
Retrieval (Radiation/Pain Corruptor): 14 --> 18
Capt. Peterson (Shield/Energy Tank): 2 --> 21

That's right, folks. I got 30 levels out of Double XP Weekend this time around. Granted, most of them were low levels, but still: I'm pretty impressed and very happy. Especially since that puts every version of Vagz at 40+, 3 in the low 40s and 2 at 50. I'm also very happy to have basically skipped the low levels with TankWill. Low level tanks are very frustrating. Having Stamina makes things much easier.

A huge thank you to Fyre, especially for helping with TankWill. It was a fun weekend all around, though, and Fyre was an important part of what made it fun. :)

I Do Not Hate Merits

I know I am distinctly in the minority, and for the life of me, I can't figure out why. Story arcs and task/strike forces will earn me merits which I can eventually spend to get the IOs that everyone wants. IOs that for me I have to either level to 50 without spending influence/infamy in order to afford, or I have to get really damn lucky.

People keep saying merits will destroy the economy of the game. As one of those that is constantly shafted by that "economy", I have to say: let the destruction come. I want to be able to get that last Luck of the Gambler for Will, pick up that Numina proc and Performance Shifter for TankVagz, and not have to pool all of my characters' money to do so.

Sorry, guys. *shrug*

I13 So Far

The night I13 dropped, I was all fired up to make Vagabond Knight (Shield Defense/Fiery Melee Tank). But the patch server wouldn't even let me in. I eventually gave up on it (about my normal bedtime) and just left my computer on so it'd eventually finish downloading without me. It did.

So last night, I got in, loaded up Vagabond Mage (Fire Blast/Electricity Manipulation Blaster) and saved his base costume. Then I went back to the login and deleted my place-holder Vagabond Knight and started a new character. I still had to choose the body type and sliders. Okay, I've got those saved, and I think I can get the height right this time. I get to the costuming screen and click Load.

It won't let me load the costume because options that BlasterVagz has open, TankVagz does not. Bastards. Why couldn't it load up the costume parts that aren't the cape and aura? *grumble*

Okay, so I re-make the costume from scratch. Not that hard.

I'm enjoying my new tank so far. Got to level 6. But I realize I lack experience with the AT and both powersets. So I'm probably going to need to plan ahead so I can figure out what powers I can and need to skip. On top of primary and secondary, I need to fit in 3 Fitness pool powers (Swift, Health, Stamina) and 2 Teleportation (most likely Teleport Foe and Teleport). It'd be nice to fit in Hover, too, but I'll skip it if I have to. I won't be hover-tanking, after all. Just using it to be lazy and magey. :)

Recommendations welcome!

Super Booster II

From Joystiq interview (with Positron):

You've said before that the team has more microtransactional content planned already. Do you have any details to offer on any of these future 'Super Booster' packs?

Super Booster II will be a magic-themed pack that will sit alongside the Cyborg pack very well. It will have costume pieces and other goodies that are themed for both stage magicians as well as your more traditional fantasy mages.



Woot!

I13 Plans

Yes, I already have characters created in my head. These are ranked from "absolutely creating the second I13 drops" down to "will create if I have time/interest".

Vagabond Knight (Shield/Fire tank)
* I already have the name reserved because I worried with shields coming, others might make a grab for it. Fyre and I have spotted other "Vagabond" characters running around... I would've made him shield/broadsword, but two things: they're not proliferating broadsword to tanks (yet), and I've already done broadsword. I contemplated Axe and Mace, but the sword is really Vagz' preferred weapon, and I kinda like that Fire includes a sword (sorta). And this way, I get a tank and two powersets I haven't played yet.

Unnamed E-VAC version (Psionic or Radiation/Pain corrupter)
*Oh, yes. E is coming back. "Pain Domination" is just too perfect for him. I'm having trouble coming up with the right name, though, mostly 'cause I'm not sure he'll go by a variation on "EVAC" with the story I've got cooking. Now what could make him go bad? Hmm...

Unnamed Will version (Shield/Mace tank)
* Yeah, you weren't the only one thinking this, Keen. :) Will's supposed to have been a SWAT officer from way back, so a riot shield and baton? All over this. Srsly. I had my fingers crossed for a riot shield, but was thinking tech mace or Energy Melee (from the power gauntlets) until I heard about the riot baton. We'll see, though. HeroWill hasn't seen a lot of play and the original Will has seen pretty much none. Plus, starting up two tanks when I've had a hard time playing tanks before might not be a good idea. My highest-level tank to date reached 16 before he was deleted.

Unnamed Blood Crucible version (Broadsword or Katana/Dark Armor or Shield or Super Reflexes or Willpower scrapper)
* Just a thought I'm toying with. As you can probably tell, it's not even close to formed yet. I enjoy the character and don't want to stop playing him once he hits 50. :) My only hesitation is playing him as just another flavor of scrapper. Dunno. We'll see.

Shields

Posted on the official forums by "Back Alley Brawler" at 10/24/08 05:44 PM:

Just tallied up our shields yesterday and we now have 41 variations (different geometry or base textures). That's not counting all of the patterns or emblems.

Bad news is Rachael threatened to choke us out and bury us in the marshes behind the Google complex if we tried to sneak in any more, so this last batch (in next week's build) will probably be it for a while.

Holy cow!

Update!

Just to summarize my City of... of late. Some items briefer than others. :)

Vagabond Wizard
I love the RP between DefenderVagz and Lunatrix. We've hit a point where I'm really curious to see what will happen next, and I'm eager to play again. :)

I know the ice shields aren't any fun to look at, but Luna's a freakin' tank with all those buffs. I've added Electric Mastery, so Vagz has a single-target immobilize to throw down now: the same Electric Fence that he spams with gleeful abandon as BlasterVagz. Luna's added Cold Mastery, so in addition to Vagz' three slows, we have another one. With all the talk of caps, I wonder what the bottom is? >:)

A few more levels and Vagz will have armor and Luna will... have another shield. Yikes.

Sounds of Silence
I love the VEATs. When we actually come up against a challenge, we're shocked. I love that! I wasn't going to take Mind Link 'cause I didn't think we needed another defense buff, but the Devouring Earth taught me that sometimes we will. And it gives a huge buff against psi which, you know, very handy. And it gives a to-hit buff. So that's what I'm mainly slotting it for.

Silence can tell the three of them are getting stronger. And now he's discovered that Lord Recluse has been screwing with them. That just firms up his resolve to become the best of the Widows. He's working his way up to... well, it might be obvious, and if it's not... I'm not going to tell you! :-D

Vagabond Blade
After sitting at 48 forever, Fyre and I went on an ITF yesterday (yay for paid days off). She took Evan Caine, that defender everyone's talking about (I teamed with her once before, honest). It was a good strong ITF, and we did really well. Afterwards, I was just over 2 bubbles from level. So we went and smacked around some Praetorians... and Vagz is now Hero of the City twice over.

Shouldn't be too much longer 'til it's three times...

Derick Darklight
Darklight finally made a full-blown appearance last night. Derick was walloped a few times by Red Caps and ended up face-planting a lot. Darklight seized the opportunity to force Derick to the back and take over. Ellianne Sylvanie had a chance to actually talk to him once she realized Derick wasn't in control any longer.

Unfortunately for Darklight, while he's getting stronger, Derick is still a force to be reckoned with. Derick forced the Nictus back down again relatively quickly. Elli almost sounded disappointed... :)

But Darklight's not done yet...

Quality of Life

Ever since Issue 12 came out... heck, including Issue 12... I've noticed the devs are putting out a lot of so-called "Quality of Life" (QoL) fixes. Listening to the playerbase, they're changing graphics, adding emotes, tweaking with power's graphical FX... I just have to say:

It's a beautiful thing. :)

It's fantastic that we have developers who play the game and listen to their players. Yes, they have their own limits they have to operate in. No, they shouldn't listen to every idiot with an opinion. But they don't have to give us some of this stuff to keep us playing. And yet, they do. And they get into endless discussions with people on the forums about it, too.

Some of the stuff that's come down the pipe recently that made me happy:

• Removed Graphical FX on auto powers granted from mayhem missions. (currently on Test)
• Fixed an issue where a player would not receive tells or see team chat messages as they were zoning. (funny that it was just tells and Team...)
• Mastermind Soldier Medics now lose their Brawl attack when their Tier 1 upgrade is applied. This makes them less likely to rush forward into combat. (Yay!)
• Lady Jane should act more intelligently in combat situations now.
• 48 Month Veteran Reward pets should no longer charge into combat. Really.

One that has made me sad:

Cold Domination/Heat Loss: The endurance recovery buff portion of this power was granting ten times greater recovery than was intended. This has been corrected.

On VEATs

Okay, so to be honest, this'll mostly be about Blood/Night Widows, but in general, here's what I think so far:

Soldiers of Arachnos are awesome, and I wonder how we're able to defeat them as often and as handily as we do. :)

Seriously, if the NPC Soldiers of Arachnos had these powers, all working together, they should be handing our butts to us on a daily... no hourly basis. I love the concept of trained soldiers having powers that buff each other and/or the entire team. It does, however, make them pretty disgustingly powerful, especially when you've got several together.

My biggest problem? There are too many powers I want to take. Maybe it's the "ooh, shiny" of powers I've never seen before, but it seems like there are way more powers I'm going to want than are going to actually be available to me. Like Keen mentions in his blog, I haven't taken a travel power yet. So far, I'm sliding by on the temp power. Originally, I thought teleport would be the way to go, and I'd use Teleport Foe... but I think I used it three times since taking it. So I took advantage of the level 24 respec to get out of it and grab Hasten instead. I'm managing my endurance just fine and finding pauses in my attack chain, so between that and the Widow power that increases my attack rate, I think I'll be doing just fine now.

And ahh... Widow Smoke Grenade. Fyre mentioned this, and it's true: if this was the only Night Widow power I could ever take, I'd still play one. It recharges nice and fast, and having been the victim of this attack so often, I can imagine how frustrated and blind my enemies suddenly find themselves. Mean? Maybe. But they deserve it. >:)

RP-wise, I think I've got interesting story/concept with Sounds of Silence, but I'm running into the same problem I usually do RPing a villain: I'm not evil enough. Sure, when I'm running a role-playing game, I'm playing all the villains, but it's not long-term. Not really. They show, they do evil, they're defeated, new villains next week. They might come back again later, but it's not the same thing.

And the missions make it really hard to play a not-evil villain. I tried really hard with Will, and by the end... well, I was having to re-write mission plots or just run them OOC, knowing Will would never do such things.

I'm trying to make Silence a nice compromise. He's cold and vicious, not reluctant to kill to get to his goals. But deep down, he's still the person he was before Arachnos made him into a Widower, and that's mostly (so far) reflected in his long-term goals and the way he treats his team-mates/allies. I'm having a hard time getting a handle on the team-mates, though. I tried to jump-start us into it by playing off that the three had come to some sort of agreement or pact before they even got started. But that was just a quick and dirty way to get started, and to be fair, I didn't run it past Keen and Fyre before doing it. I'm trying to figure out what kind of people Karma Noir and Operative Lee really are so I can figure out what Silence really thinks of them, but I'm having trouble nailing it down.

Hopefully I'll get it figured out, though. I'm really loving being a Night Widower, but I don't want to be in it just to level a character. I play City of _____ to role-play and tell stories. Really get into a character, not just a "toon".

Double XP Weekend - recap

First off, I've been meaning to post on the VEATs. And I will. Promise. But this isn't that post.

Blood Crucible 44 -> 45
Derick Darklight 23 -> 30 (almost 31)
Sounds of Silence 17 -> 25

So that's 16, almost 17 levels gained in one weekend. And BC gained his level in just the couple hours Fyre and I played Friday night.

I only had one moment where I was unable to get into Virtue, and that's when I signed on a bit early for Altitis Sunday. Ended up logging on Sleetsquall, of all people, dropping a mission, and then logging out... and I was able to get into Virtue. So no sweat. Had some lag, some rubber-banding, and some mapserver issues. Also minor.

The one big beef I had with the weekend was the constant dropping of Global. I've come to expect it on busy weekends and with new issue launches. But realizing that I've come to expect it suddenly ticked me off. This happens every time there's a busy weekend or an issue launch. Why haven't they figured out why it happens and fixed it? Why are some of these bugs/errors/problems/annoyances still issues?

Enh. Anyway. Very productive and fun 2xXP weekend, but I'll be glad to see things settle back to normal. :)

The Imperious Task Force

I love Cimerora. Love, love, love. It's visually awe-inspiring, and I wish parts of the ITF were accessible outside of the TF so I could just go hang out there. If and when my economic stimulus check arrives, it's immediately going to a more powerful video card just so I can turn my graphics settings up even higher.

Unfortunately, I was so wrapped up in the TF and in looking around that I completely forgot to take any screenshots. @#$%. At least I'm planning to do it again. I still want to take Vagabond Blade and Blood Crucible on it. Then make some tweaks to their armors. So there'll be other chances. And if I get the new video card first, then the screenies will be even prettier. :)

I hope everyone had a good time on the ITF, by the way. I know I sure did. And I read every word of what Imperious said, every clue that dropped, and every bit of NPC dialog. I was totally into the plot and eating up every word. Even though it wasn't RP heavy, I was in Vagz' head the entire time, and both of us were in awe.

Speaking of Vagz, I have been having a blast playing him again. He really is my favorite character to RP. He has lots of depth, lots of history, and it's always interesting to play him. He constantly surprises me, though, even after having played him since 1991-ish. Yeah, he's that "old".

What surprises me the most is how he gets along with other characters. Sometimes, I'll think "oh, he'll get along great with this character", and I'll be blown away by how wrong I am. Other times, it's the opposite. Case in point: Lunatrix.

To me, this duo had "DOOM" written all over it. With extra O's, even. Mechanically, I knew it'd be a great match-up, but I thought for sure the characters would take an instant dislike for each other and Fyre and I would spend half our time trying to come up with ways to keep the two together. And I have never been more happy to be wrong.

Don't get me wrong: the characters aren't best buds or anything, and they have big arguments and blow-ups. But it's interesting RP. They have interesting conversations, interesting fights, and it's the kind of RP I've been missing for a bit now.

And with Shields coming Soon(tm), I'm all excited about TankVagz being on the horizon... :)

DefenderVagz

With Vagabond Magus (ControllerVagz) at 40, and the new slots that'll open up for me when Issue 12 hits the live servers, I'm seriously contemplating the next incarnation of the vagabond. I was hoping they'd proliferate Thermal Radiation to defenders, but instead they sent the powerset I used for VillainVagz - Cold Domination. So now I have to figure out what sets to go with.

As an old-school Dungeons & Dragons wizard, the one thing Vagz' magic can't do (except in the Ultima universe) is heal. I'm also not really interested in repeating a powerset since that kind of defeats the purpose of making a new version. The vagabond's strengths have always been with fire, lightning, and pure magical energy/force.

Among the defender primaries, I'm looking at Cold Domination, Dark Miasma, Kinetics, and Storm Summoning. To me, Empathy is centered too much around heals, Force Field would be repeating the powerset from ControllerVagz, Radiation Emission just doesn't seem right (and I did it already with E.VAC), Sonic Resonance doesn't seem right (and I think would feel like a repeat of FF), and Trick Arrow... well, Vagz is about the sword, not a bow.

My concern with dark and kinetics is that I'd have to skip the heals and that might be a bit crippling to the sets. Dark might not really work for Vagz anyway, but kinetics still has some possibility. My concern with storm, even though that's the way I was thinking of going pre-proliferation, is that I've already done it with Jack Royale.

Which has me kind of leaning toward cold. It has some good buffs and debuffs, no heal for me to skip, and VillainVagz (The Gray Wizard) was a Cold Domination/Fire Blast corruptor, so it's something he's touched on already.

As far as secondaries, I'm pretty much committed to Electric Blast. In the beginning, I had to choose whether to make BlasterVagz (Vagabond Mage) fire/elec or elec/fire. I went with the fireball first, so now it's probably time to play with those lightning bolts. :) Dark Blast, Energy Blast, and Ice Blast would make good secondaries, too, but I think I'm leaning away from dark, energy might cause too much knockback, and while ice is an excellent blast set, I like to keep up Vagz' status as a dabbler by keeping his powersets as different as possible.

I would love to get thoughts, advice, and suggestions on this. It doesn't matter if it's from an IC standpoint, mechanical standpoint, or what. Any help would be welcome.

Happy 4th Birthday, CoH/V!

If you haven't already read it, here's a link to Positron's celebratory letter.

http://www.cityofheroes.com/news/archives/2008/04/a_message_from.html

Most eye-catching to me is that they're looking to allow player-made content. That's right, people will be able to make custom missions, choose the foe, choose the map, even write custom dialog and mission goals.

Now some will be looking to do it for bragging rights or whatever, intending to make missions for other people to run in and rate. Personally, the biggest potential I see is for RP. There've been several times where I've "re-written" a mission to use it for a character's story (Kronos Titan turned into Styrm, for example). When this new feature goes live (yes, I know it'll be "Soon (tm)"), I'll be able to just craft those sorts of missions from scratch myself. Then run through it with the people I want to run through it.

It'll be a thing of beauty. :)

Whew!

From Lighthouse, Community Relations Manager: "Just to clarify, additional monthly billing is not currently something being considered for optional Character Slots."

Yay!

Almost... There...

Well, from the sound of the Dev posts on the official boards, even closed beta of I12 is several weeks off. With open beta a few weeks after that and then a few weeks before going Live, I figure we still have about two months before I12 at least. That means plenty of time to get to 50 red-side, especially since I'm not sure I want to create a new Wolf Spider character the day the issue goes Live. Mercy Island is going to be PACKED with Wolf Spiders and Blood Widows, so it might be easier to wait 'til that first crop has moved on at least to Port Oakes if not Cap Au Diable. We'll see, though.

Fyre-Hex and Cpt. William Piett hit 48 this weekend. Will is now a bit more than half a level away from his final power at 49. Then another level to 50. My first red-side 50 and my fourth level 50 character overall. I'm enjoying the Black Scorpion Patron Pool (Mace Mastery), and unlike my other 50s, I'll be grabbing all four powers from the pool. Having the armor has been great. The AoE immobilize is helpful, and the hold is turning out to be very handy. Between Fyre, Havoc, and Will, we can keep large groups of enemies right where they are. We've even held a "Hero" through stacking.

It's funny, though. It seems like so many people go after Ghost Widow's Patron Pool (Soul Mastery). I was originally thinking that would be the pool for 'Ware Wolf, but now... well, I'd kinda like to see some of the other pools. So for that reason alone, the wolf might end up with Scirocco or even Mako as his Patron. Just for something different.

Who knows, though. I don't play the wolf, and I don't see a reason to start in my future. I love the character, but... well, he may end up deleted.

I don't have to make that choice yet, though. I've got a baby blaster I can easily delete from Virtue. And Derick Darklight may get the axe once more for the same reason as the wolf, but since he's lower in level, he's easier to delete. That'll make room for DefenderVagz and my Wolf Spider. :)

You're Welcome

According to Positron himself, those of us who paid for the Wedding Pack helped budget things so we got the villain Epic ATs in I12 instead of I13.

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=general&Number=10374672&bodyprev=#Post10374672

Issue 12

In the interest of not being redundant and repeating what others are saying...

Me, too. :-D

http://www.cityofheroes.com/game_update12.html

Spring Fling

I have purchased the add-on. I am such an addict. :)

In my defense, I have three characters (Blood Crucible and Jack Royale on Virtue, Butcher of the Pit on Triumph) who wear tuxedos. Having the tails is going to be sweet. Don't know if I'll use the female dress options, but when it comes to costuming options, my policy is "GIMME MORE!"

And Vagabond Magus spent a good part of last night tossing rose petals at unsuspecting heroes. I made sure to especially decorate any male/female couples standing very close to each other, not saying anything in Local.

I'm evil and I should be stopped.

Now I just need to see if (a) they're going to be selling Drops in Pocket D again and (b) if I need to clear Vagabond Mage's Valentine's mission from last year first...

Double XP Weekend - results

Vagabond Magus: 29 to 35 (almost 36)

Yes, I logged in just one character all weekend long. And it was worth it. Vagz has his imps, the fire control powers I really wanted, the force fields I wanted, and now the only "regular" power left to take is the Medicine Pool's rez. Then it's 41 and Fire Mastery...