Hythia

So I tossed a google ads strip up in the lower left part of my guide site earlier today. I don’t honestly expect the ads to ever amount to much money, it’d be nice if they paid my hosting fees, but unlikely unless I suddenly see a lot more traffic to it. What they have been so far is a source of much hilarity.

I’ve been adding images to the Foe Group pages this afternoon and the various ads that come up for them are great. The Council, known for their robot troops among other things, keep coming up with ads for robot hobbyist kits so you can build your own robots. The Carnival of Shadows seems to keep coming up with people trying to sell trophies.

Much strange, inadvertant, humor.

(Originally posted at A Home Away from Hythia)

So I was poking around in the game data files for CoH/CoV tonight. Mostly trying to extract a badge image for Jet-Setter / Longbow Reservist for my guide site when I stumbled across something interesting. There is apparently another holiday badge yet to come this year, one which for the heroes will be ‘Holiday Spirit’ and for the villains ‘Scrooge’. Same basic badge art, instead of a green present on a grey background, it will be a red present on a navy blue/denim purple background.

Interesting looking at some of the data. Got some stuff to fix in some other badge listings in my sight. ‘Most Wanted’ and ‘Wanted’ are villain badges, but some of my heroes have them. The hero forms should be ‘Risk Taker’ and ‘Vigilante’ respectively but it looks like if you got them in the early few days after I6 came out you may have the wrong forms of the badges. There also appears to be a badge icon for ‘Prestige’ which I can only assume is a badge for earning prestige for an SG instead of converting Influence to Prestige.

For SG badges (non-beacon) I can see names for:
Analyzer Base Defense
Gas Trap Base Defense
Improved Energy Turret
Improved Igniter
Repulsor Base Defense
Benedict DR Turret Plans
Benedict DR-3 Turret Plans
Benedict DR-2 Turret Plans
SG Mission Computer
Autonomous Expert System Plans
Advanced Holodisplay Plans
Mega Monitor Plans
Emergency Capacitor Plans
Fusion Generator Plans
Auto-Doc Plans
Robo-Surgery Plans
Combat Log Plans

But hell if I know how most of those are earned.

There are some really cool sounding Villain badges I haven’t seen yet though, like “The Mad God”, “Elder Signs”, “Eldritch War”. The text data is in the files, but no idea how to earn them in-game.

(Originally posted at A Home Away from Hythia)

I realize I ramble about CoH (City of Heroes) on here a lot. I’d be apologetic about it, but, really, a lot of the people who I know that are reading this also play CoH. So to those of you who read this and don’t… Bah!

Anyways, one of the things that has been bugging me for a while, and having me actually play my 50 less then I would otherwise, is that there really is not much content at the high end. For levels 45-50 there are four story-arcs. Four. 40-45 and 35-40 both had six. 25-30 and 30-35 both had five. You suddenly get to the highest levels of the game… And there is less to do. Blegh.

There is the Shadow Shard, but other then the TFs there, the story content is really minimal. Five contacts and only a handful of missions that they just keep re-using over and over: “(Ruluruu / Nemesis / CoT) here, beat them!”, “Soldiers missing, rescue them from (Ruluruu / Nemesis / CoT)!”, “Go click glowies!”, “Go pick fruit!”. There isn’t even any interesting color stuff to them it seems, unlike the cool recycled/instanced Broker missions in CoV (City of Villains).

I guess the one that has been sticking in my craw lately is the ‘Dam Trial’. Way way back when, pre-release, in the beta- for CoH there was a trial at the south end of Faultline where you had to protect four pillars (turbines(?)) to save the dam. Think the Terra Volta trial, but with four reactors you had to protect instead of just one. Somewhere before launch it got nixed and we got left with the zone of Faultline having no real purpose except pissing people off who have defeat missions there (actually, in it’s defense, way back in the day it was ‘the’ power-leveling zone to get you from 12-20). The map data is still there, if you have a .pigg viewer you can actually look at the mini-map overhead view of the part of the zone south of the Reservoir that isn’t accessible anymore, but the trial itself is gone. I want my ‘Dam Trial’ dammit!

(Originally posted at A Home Away from Hythia)

Champion Alts
50 Ene/Ene Blaster - Still working on those last few badges: Buckholder’s Bane, Destroyer of Strength, Protector of Kindness, Slayer of Madness, Trendsetter, Popular, Leader, Imprisoned, Confined, Caged, Jailed, Irradiated, Web Master, Rocketman, Grand Lanista, Master of Olympus, Statesman’s Pal, Pumpkin King, Giant Killer, Geas of the Kind Ones, and a few Gladiator badges.

26 Invul/EM Tanker - Done a couple TFs lately, hit 26, need to go back and clear the second half of the Striga content.

12 AR/Dev Blaster - Respec’d for I6 finally. Pondering building it as a ‘Stalker Hunter’ for purely PvP reasons with Targetting Drone (+Acc / +Per), Cloaking Device (Stealth), and Tactics (+Acc / +Per). Given it is already on the path to Super Leap they should be able to keep up with or outrun Stalkers and the stacked +Per should let them see through Hide and Stealth.

17 Kin/Elec Defender - Respec’d for I6 and still has the same problems as before. I have too many slots in the primary and not enough in the secondary. Might have made it worse with this respec actually. Just isn’t fun to play solo and in a team I’d rather play someone else normally so it lingers on as a purely RP character that I rarely pull out.

26 Ice/Ice Blaster - Got some play recently and respec’d for I6. Finally hit 26 and got the second Ice Blast hold power. Still grumpy at the I5 nerf to his hold duration as they wear off faster then they cycle right now even against white cons. Going to have to slot more heavily in them then I had planned for Hold Dur and Recharge Rate.

12 Warshade - Haven’t touched this one in a bit. Split between respec’ing as a goofy tri-form Warshade or saying to hell with it and swapping to MA/Ninjitsu Stalker.

21 Peacebringer - Respec’d for I6 a bit back. On occasionally with it’s partner to do some missions. Very very slowly working through the 20-25 Kheldian arc.

15 EM/EA Stalker - Finally hit 15 the other day and has new content again. Working it’s way now through the 15-20 storyarcs. Very surprised at times at both how fragile and how tough it is. Took down 9 white con Goldbrickers guarding a hostage without a problem. Got spanked by 2 yellow con Spectral Knights in about 15 seconds flat. Next level is the EA mez defense.

14 Fire/Fire Corrupter - My solely team-based villain. No contacts on it except for Kalinda and Mongoose. Still fun to play though. Sort of the ‘reversed-world’ experience for me however. I mean, I simply do not player healer-heroes, they bore the snot out of me. But it hasn’t been too bad as a villain. Need to push it up closer to 20 so I can do a run of the first villain SF and be useful to the team.

15 Archery/Ene Blaster - Working through the last Hollows contact. At the Igneous hunt I think. Fun change of pace. Plays oddly differently from my other blasters and I really am not sure why. Maybe because I have entirely ignored the secondary and likely will continue to do so except for the self-buffs.

5 Dark/Dark Brute - Don’t play it much, but it is rather fun when I do. Still tossing around the idea of re-rolling into Super Strength instead of Dark Melee just for the visual aspects of this tiny little guy punching people up into the air or footstomping them away, but happy with Dark for now.

5 Mind/Psi Dominator - I really tore up the Beta as a Dominator, hell of a lot of fun. But I just can’t get into it now that it is live. I think because solo they were so easy to play, dealing with 3 foes at a time was no problem. But in a team, which is what I do pretty much all my CoV play as except for my Stalker, they just aren’t as… Dominating. I miss something with my primary set and suddenly I am in serious trouble. This is my second Dominator try since it went live, Plant/Thorn was my first. Plant Control is a sickly good set, but Thorn irritated me. I kept having to pop the thorns out again everytime I threw a Plant attack and the delay in the animation actually got me walloped a couple times. I may re-roll it into another hero and try a Elec/Elec blaster instead. Not sure yet.

Virtue Alts
21 Rad/Rad Corrupter - Goof around with him a little bit. He’s done the first SF twice now which was a blast. Need to run him around some more in Sharkshead. Definately fun, close to SOs and I think easily my best balanced Corrupter build so far when it comes to damage output vs team buffing / healing.

(Originally posted at A Home Away from Hythia)

Questions and Answers that I thought were noteworthy from the forums…

***

Q: Given the move towards a more dynamic medium of PvP interaction and gameplay with the advent of City of Villains, are there any plans within the Dev Team to revise the current 3-strikes-and-out Respec system?

A: I’d like to attach a respec as a reward for completing a high level Task Force (say, one of the Shadow Shard ones). Players thus can earn endless respecs…

***

Q: Changing the Assault Rifle appearance by choice?

A: We want to create a “signature weapon” feature that will allow players to select a weapon from a host of possibilities. I’d like to get that into place within the year.

***

Q: When will you actually start adding real new powersets and things worthwhile?

A: Hmmm. A loaded question. We just added Archery and Sonics for heroes; there a number of new sets for villains. We’ll continue to add more stuff in the future: Thugs (for Masterminds), Shields (Tankers and Scrappers), etc.

***

Q: Will we be seeing solo lairs or bases in the near future? For private practical use. Instead of being dependant on others to build an SG base?

A: It’s likely you’ll see this soon. I’m not sure that private hideouts will ever have the same level of game functionality as Super Group bases, but they will at least be decorative.

***

Q: I have read in an old Statesman thread that you were envisaging implementation of a drop unwanted mission function. Is this still in the cards and can you say anything about expected timing of this?

A: Not I7, but in an Issue soon after.

***

Those were the little bits that interested me at least.

(Originally posted at A Home Away from Hythia)

So I finally got it far along to put up publically. Not perfect, by no means finished, some sections ( foe groups ) don’t even have any content in them yet and are just there for organizational purposes so I know what my links to it later will be. But it is up and I am working on it slowly.

Hythian’s ‘City of’ Guide

(Originally posted at A Home Away from Hythia)

So I have been horribly wrong in the past on previous issues, both on content and when they will show up, so I figured I’d make a fool of myself and make a guess on Issue 7 as well.

I am also guessing that Issue 7 will be before the end of the year, simply to hurry out and unlock the last 10 levels for Villains and the last two CoV zones before too many people get clumped up at 40.

The places where I mention ‘Issues’ below are when the item was first mentioned as ‘Coming Soon’ or the original guess-timated Issue for them.

What I am almost certain will be in:
Villain levels 41-50
Grandville zone ( highest level CoV zone ) will be unlocked
Recluse’s Victory zone ( highst level PvP zone? ) will be unlocked

What I would hope to see in:
Ancillary power pools for Villains
Costume items fully shared between heroes and villains

What I would like to see but probably won’t:
Fallen Heroes and Redeemed Villains
Quarterstaff, Pistol, and Shield powersets for CoH or CoV ( Issue 4 )
Coralax epic AT ( Issue 4 )
Avilan epic AT ( Issue 4 )
Incarnate epic AT ( Issue 4 )
Blood of the Black Flow ( egypt-themed ) villain group ( Issue 4 )

What I wonder if we will ever see:
Skill system ( Issue 5 )
Flashbacks ( Issue 7 )

(Originally posted at A Home Away from Hythia)

So I was lazy over the weekend on posting, mostly because I was playing too much, but here we go…

50 Ene/Ene blaster - Did the 44+ respec last week against Rikti. Was a lot of fun, had a small team, more then willing to do it again for more Prestige.

23 Inv/Ene tanker - Been Prestige gathering with him, he is about two missions from needing a team against Maestro I believe.

11 AR/Dev blaster - Ignored once more, need to do more with it.

17 Kin/Elec defender - Still needs a bio thread posted up, largely ignored.

25 Ice/Ice blaster - Hope to start playing him again more soon, needs to respec.

12 Warshade - Ignored once more, might respec into Nova form.

21 Peacebringer - Respec’d and doing pretty good, lost Hasten and Assault, got Build-up and Proton Scatter.

13 Son/Son defender - Ignored once more, going to respec out of the first Sonic primary power ( debuff ) into the shields earlier.

14 Rad/Rad corrupter (Virtue) - Still fun which is odd for me to be playing a heal’y person and having fun, not getting as much play as I would like, but the entire group over there is less active then I would like.

12 Ene/Ene stalker - Serious blast to play, most/half of the way through the Cap au Diable set of contacts.

9 Dark/Dark corrupter - Another heal’y character that I oddly have fun with. Strange little facehugger.

6 Fire/Fire corrupter - Yes… Another heal’y person and with the best medical powerset in CoV as well… What is wrong with me?

9 Arc/Ene blaster - A new blaster that I have been running solo in the times when no one seems to be around. Finding the Archery primary as a blaster to be fun, never liked it with Trick Arrow as a defender.

(Originally posted at A Home Away from Hythia)

So spent almost the entire weekend in CoV, game is damned fun and a nice break from CoH. Very addictive for me as it is soo much new content and I have seen pretty much all of the CoH content at this point. So, quick character run-down, oldest to newest…

50 Ene/Ene Blaster - Picked up explore badges in PvP zones, got 28 gladiator badges with Issue 6 patched in, still needs the same couple defeat and TF badges she has been needing. Still need to decide on ED changes, likely will need to respec.

23 Invul/Ene Tanker - Ran around on Striga Isle some after ED went in, noticed really no change at all. Will likely not need to use the free respec, just change what enhancements are slotted in a couple powers.

11 AR/Dev Blaster - Utterly ignored except for SG rank changes.

25 Ice/Ice Blaster - Been ignored, will need to respec slots out of Hasten and Stamina I believe. More into damage and holds.

17 Kin/Elec Defender - Been pretty ignored too. Will need to respec slots out of Hasten and into heal and more damage.

12 Warshade - Ignored, not sure if any changes are needed here.

20 Peacebringer - Will need to respec slots out of Hasten, may drop Hasten entirely for an additional attack, likely the cone. WIll drop Assault for Build-up.

12 Sonic/Sonic Defender - Ignored, don’t believe any changes will be needed here.

12 Rad/Rad Corrupter - Halfway through 12, working on Radio contact, may be moving on to Cap au Diable soon. Soon as he hits 14, explore badge hunting time. Fear the exposed brain ( with wires! ).

6 Ene/Ene Stalker - Already finished first heist and grabbed first contact. Will be using him to see the actual Port Oakes content most likely. Very cool to play solo, very odd change of pace.

7 Dark/Dark Corrupter - Ugly as sin, freakishly deformed, slotted very heavily for team play ( more slots in his heal then everything else ) so strange to play solo, but still do-able. Not used to either powerset really so a little frustrating at times.

Also got a bunch of level 1s that I haven’t done anything with yet except make up a name and costume. Going to have to work out some balance between playing each game so I don’t neglect CoH and all my duties and stuff there too much. But CoV is soo pretty and neat and new and.. and.. and..

(Originally posted at A Home Away from Hythia)

So it is technically now really the end of the first full day of the 2 Day Head Start. Server access for it has been up about twenty-five hours now.

My Rad / Rad Corrupter which I got to ten early this morning made it halfway through 12 later today. Also found out that the Port Oakes contacts are leveled past at 11, so will have to actually do their story-arcs with another character now. *sighs* Yet another alt of mine who is really looking forward to them finally getting Flashbacks in-game so you can go back and do content you missed. But will be finishing up my last few already queued up Oakes missions and then heading to Cap au Diable soon. If I make it to 14 and fly I will have to spend some time going back and badge hunting to get all of the explores I haven’t bothered looking for yet.

Other then that, only character I’ve been on with much is a Ninja Sword / Ninjitsu Stalker. Got it to 4 but kind of have a funny taste in my mouth with it. Play with it has been weird, keep getting knocked out of hide because of cones targetted at team mates or things spot me right as my attack launches and I don’t get the crit. Was disappointed at how amazingly short ranged the cone turned out to feel like so pondering now re-rolling it into MA/Ninjitsu. Also kind of irked at Ninjitsu, of all powersets, not having knockback / knockdown defense. Thematically that just feels weird to me.

Might finally make the Dominator I’ve been thinking about or a Mastermind tomorrow. No clue. But the game has been an absolute blast so far. Lots of differences from CoH, cool new zones that I haven’t even scratched the surface of exploring ( partly because they are freaking huge ), lots of content I haven’t reached yet. All in all, much fun.

But need to sleep now. Brain is tired after being up so long last night and not much sleep today.

(Originally posted at A Home Away from Hythia)