ajackson

Re: No Missions Left to Complete?

There are a fair number of quests in the game that are hard to find. I just hit 40; I made it all the way on quests, though I did join in a fair number of public quests and just random mucking around, which does add up a bit. A lot of people make it other than a bit of grinding at around 30 and again at 39.

Re: Free Trial Restart?

Is it possible to get your 30 day free trial restarted if circumstances prevent you from getting to the actual gameplay?

They certainly have the technical ability to grant you extra days of play, as well as detect whether you have actually logged in. However, they have no formal publicized policy for using those abilities, and thus it's basically up to you to convince them to give you the extra time. It probably isn't too hard to do so, but I haven't dealt with their support desk, so I don't actually know.

Re: Respecing Might based on Test Server notes

This was after the devs said they weakened the foes' date=' but the foes seemed much tougher than before that patch.[/quote']

Hah. If it was right after that patch, that patch introduced a bug (fixed in the next patch) which made continuous npc attacks (like, err, all of Dr D's robots) do ridiculous damage. This is not to say the factory isn't hard, but it isn't ridiculous.

Re: Abilities Discussion

Btw, the next time you run into Viper-X (Monster Island Crisis) he won't be much of a challenge (he's too busy being eaten by Mega-Terak). It's usually Ripper who's the problem there.

Re: Respecing Might based on Test Server notes

Getting squished in Dr D's roboshop is expected. BTW, I recommend never ranking up your energy builder, the miniscule damage increase you get isn't worth the advantage points (other energy builder advantages are often worth it; it's just ranking that's kind of worthless).

Re: So I have the game....

At this point, I suggest trying the CO forums. Actually, this looks like your problem.

Re: So I have the game....

Hard to tell without being able to see your screen. Be aware that the first time you play it's going to want to load quite a lot of patches, which may make the patch loading slow. Also, did you click on the 'patch' button?

Re: Might

I've been displeased with Shuriken Throw+Chained Kunai. Mobs have a tendency to return to where they were after I pull them' date=' which kind of cancels the value of it.[/quote']

Another key trick is 'f' for 'follow'. You'll probably want to use this continually.

Re: Might

Might is somewhat subpar at the moment. However, in general the thing you need for might is a way to quickly close with your opponents, so pick one or more of:

Shuriken Throw (martial arts)+Chained Kunai advantage (pull, 50' range)

Iron Lariat (supernatural) (pull, 50' range)

Thunderbolt Lunge (martial arts) (lunge, 50' range)

Mighty Leap (might) (lunge, 50' range)

Movement Power: acrobatics (+versatility) -- it's the fastest movement power under combat conditions.

In general, a pull will probably be more useful than a lunge, because a pull means you can prevent your target from wandering off into a second group of mobs who will start hammering on you while you're trying to finish off the first set.

Beyond that, the only out-of-framework powers I recommend specifically are invulnerability (power armor) and energy shield (power armor)+laser swordsman (auto-block when using melee attacks) -- they have excellent synergies and defiance is generally somewhat weak as a defensive power.

For your in-group powers, roomsweeper does great damage but you will get very tired of chasing down the mobs you've scattered to the four winds with knockback, beatdown you will never use after you get haymaker (except to apply crippling challenge in PvP) but is hard to do without until then because of the lack of knockback, hurl does negligible damage (but is possibly useful in PvP for travel power removal), the rest of the powers are solid but unspectacular.

Re: Abilities Discussion

Well...just tried to do the Bullets for Bisselle mission. I blew thru the assassins and snipers by myself no problem' date=' but Viper-X one shotted me right out of the gate.[/quote']

Yeah, Viper-X is the first "block or he'll drop you in one hit" boss you're likely to fight (Grond probably one-shotted you earlier, but there's no real expectation of beating him). He's not really soloable at the normal level for the quest, though my L38 could probably do it without too much trouble.

 

Block-or-fall will become a familiar pattern at later levels, as you run into the Mega Destroid (open mission) or basically any of the 5-man missions. Teleiosaurus in its current incarnation will probably defeat you through a rank 3 block.

Re: Abilities Discussion

Masterful Dodge is good while it lasts' date=' but it doesn't last long enough.[/quote']

Ranking up energy form boosts duration, so ranking up MD would probably do the same, but going to 15 or 18 seconds probably wouldn't solve the problem.

Re: Abilities Discussion

For a defensive characters, there's four parts: passive defense, block, active defense, and healing. I don't know that much about some of those things, but I know enough about the general mechanics to make comments that aren't totally uninformed.

Your passive defense, as of the current build, should be one of regeneration, invulnerability, or lightning reflexes. Overall regeneration is probably the best single defensive power, but is weak vs high rates of incoming damage and has poor synergy with healing powers.

There are several good blocking powers in the game; currently, force shield with force sheath is probably the most popular, though ebon void with voracious darkness is tougher against a sustained pounding and ice shield debuffs your opponents. TK shield pre-fix was the best block in the game, but is being fixed as of the next patch and has probably become inferior to force shield.

I have little experience with active defenses; I'm not a fan of short-term buffs of whatever type, though I can imagine them being useful. It sounds like masterful dodge is quite good.

In terms of healing, a support healer can afford a maintained heal, but a character who's designed to be defensive would rather not -- any time you spend healing is time you aren't spending blocking or attacking. Currently, Mindful Reinforcement has a bug that makes it the best heal; without that bug I'm not sure where it rates (depends on what level the protective field is layered at). Other than that, Resurgence is a very strong click heal but has a 90 second cooldown, Bountiful Chi Resurgence is a fairly weak heal-over-time that you can trivially maintain forever (5 energy and 0.67 seconds every 12 seconds), but comes with a built-in 20% damage reduction that you need an advantage to eliminate, bionic shielding is a somewhat mediocre heal which requires you to take damage (at least five times) to fully activate and has a 60 second cooldown. Beyond that, you have the charged or maintained heals. Empathic Healing is essentially unusable for a defensive character (it breaks off if you take damage), psionic healing and arcane vitality are both solid heals with no cooldown, but are somewhat slow and prone to being disrupted.

Re: Plasma Rockets pass 200 kilowatt benchmark; to Mars in 39 days...

Am I advocating using Robert Zubrin's "Mars Direct" mission architecture? Absolutely.

Sadly, Zubrin is a wild optimist. It may be that Mars Direct would work, but the price tag and time scale are dubious.

Re: Escapist reviews CO.

I'll be surprised if the upcoming Blood Moon Rising event doesn't heap on the dark and gritty.

Masses of zombies doesn't add up to dark and gritty.

Re: Do you play CO as an MMO?

Yeah' date=' I too have been surprised by the lack of beggars.[/quote']

May have to do with the fact that begging is likely to be spectacularly useless. Equipment is mostly impractical to transfer between characters (a level 35 is unlikely to have any equipment, even trash, lower than level 30) and asking someone to walk in and nuke a mob for you is time-consuming and boring for them, and boring for you.

Re: Do you play CO as an MMO?

Bringing it back to Champions Online as an MMO: So far' date=' I've not had anyone beg my higher level character for lair runs or resources[/quote']

I've seen a considerable amount of 'looking for help' messages, but they're usually (a) general, and ( not specifically looking for higher level assist, they're just looking for a appropriate-level group to finish off a challenging quest.

Re: Do you play CO as an MMO?

That's great that you are having fun. Unfortunately once you have reached level 40 there doesn't seem to be much more left to do. You might make a few other characters to level' date=' but at some point it will get old.[/quote']

And this differs from other MMOs how, exactly?

Re: Official Hero Boards Super Team And Chat Channel!

Being in supergroup let's you a) chat with your friends in the sg channel' date=' gives you an extra costume slot, and c) allows you to also share supergroup bank space.[/quote']

In practice, people mostly use the Hero Board Chat channel, which doesn't require being part of the SG. However, another benefit of the SG is that you can get a list of SG members online.

I've now done 3 of the 5-man missions (two of which I did twice in part or full). General thoughts:

Destroyer's Lab: Overall, I think the best of the bunch. It has a good mix of battles that aren't all the same, as well as a couple of tricky non-battle parts (the parts magnet in the robot factory is a bear to control). The fact that there's only one respawn point, at the start of the scenario, significantly encourages you to be cautious about getting yourself defeated. One puzzle/bug, though: in the final room, when you first arrive, you have a 5 minute countdown to disable 5 assembly systems. I took out 4 of them in the 5 minutes, at which point the countdown froze at 0 seconds, until I killed the last of them. I have no idea what, if anything, I accomplished by doing that. It's possible that the super-destroyer didn't have all of its weapon systems. I think it would be better if that countdown were more meaningful.

Teleios' Tower: Unlike Destroyer's Lab, there's respawn points at every level. There are probably tricks to doing the tower, but I never saw them. I did get defeated quite a lot, but it seemed to be mostly a case of one fight after another.

Burial Caves: the worst of the lot. There's only one trick, which is obvious, and all the fights are pretty much the same. Necrull himself is quite unscary.

Re: Do you play CO as an MMO?

On my sorcerer I so want to get some healing powers to see what their like' date=' but I just can't spare the slots without suffering in solo play [/quote']

Sure you can. Most healing powers can be used on yourself. Summoning stuff to do damage and then sitting there using healing to keep yourself up while your summons do damage is a viable option.

Re: Do you play CO as an MMO?

The missions you can't practically solo are some of the open missions and some of the higher end lairs. The first open mission you probably can't solo is the hangman mission in the desert (on the ledge above the ghost town), which is a plausible mission for a group at level 12-15 but is a rather easy mission to miss. The second is probably A Bullet for Bissell, at around level 20; you're more likely to actually hear people asking for assistance on that one. For lairs, you don't really run into un-soloable adventures until the Destroyer factory (level 28), Teleios' tower (level 30), or the Burial Caves (Level 31).

However, teamwork doesn't work very well in CO -- it's quite difficult to effectively assist teammates anyway, since the UI for targeting an ally with a heal is not very good (and there are few other buffing effects) and it's nearly impossible to reliably grab (or avoid) aggro.

Re: Planning Some Runs For Tuesday 9/22: Destroyer, Necrull, Moreau

So, playing last night (with the npc damage bugs in place) I tried running through Destroyer with a team of 4-5 (lost one part way through; we shut down the factory, but failed on Search and Destroyer) and ran through Necrull with a team of 3 (completed without major incident, though a fair number of respawns). There's a lot of nasty spawns in Burial Caves, but nothing really tricky, and Necrull isn't that hard for a legendary.

Re: Crafting

How do you make custom equipment anyway? I have the skill level, but haven't figured out how to actually do the crafting.

Re: List Your CO Nemeses!

Bug reports are apparently better sent in-game, but I don't think there's a ticket system for suggestions.

Re: Planning Some Runs For Tuesday 9/22: Destroyer, Necrull, Moreau

I definitely won't be online wanting to start an instance at that point.

I sort of figured that would be the case.