City of Villains

[Spriggan]

Ha ha! I'm stealing your thunder!

Though I've only made a handful of Villains, and only played 2 of them, so most of the time I've spent with the game has been playing.

Now if only the leveling would be sped up a bit I'd be much happier.

[Spriggan]

New pics are up.

I added a Blaze Scorpio since I didn't have any from my PC, the previous ones are from the Lappy.

And here's a corrupter I was messing around with.  She's got a panda on her shoulder for some reason.

Finally here's Shadow Scorpio, I really like the costume but I'm annoyed at a clipping problem with his nose and mask.

[Fellfrosch]

You could fix that in the character maker by scaling back his nose...but since you're already pretty high level, I doubt you want to go back and start over. It is a cool outfit, though.

[Spriggan]

You can scale noses?  I had no idea and now I'm quite upset that they couldn't even get the default nose to work with all the masks. That's some lazy modeling.

[Fellfrosch]

Sorry guys, no blog today. I was out until 1 last night, and didn't feel like writing when I got home.

I've never had a problem with the masks, but I don't deny that clipping problems exist--usually with the elements that overlay the rest of the model, like hair and robes. It makes sense that masks would be one of them...but that doesn't excuse it.

In the character creation screen, click on "scales" at the bottom, under the color window. This allows you to change eight or so sliders for the body, and twenty or thirty for the head and face. It's very difficult to use these well, and I rarely touch them, but a quick nose job is pretty easy.

[Spriggan]

So I hit lvl 14 tonight, which is higher then I got in CoH, and took Teleport as my travel power since it fits with my character (the magic assassin).

I think the ability to have more of a choice in your mundane missions (from the newspaper) helps, I usually take any of the magic related ones again due to my character's background.  Also the contacts tend to have more interesting story missions with less running around and more random instances.

I am sad the Nazis are gone, but the council I guess is run by vampires or demons since I've had to fight both already and that add something since both the good guys and bad guys don't like them.

But my favorite group so far to fight against are the Legacy Chain which are the Knight Templar like group, I tend to run into them a lot due to my choosing magic/artifact related quests.

[Spriggan]

I'm going to have to disagree with your blog entry about Stalkers Fell.

. This makes them much harder to solo, and the fragility of stealth makes them (so I hear) kind of weak in PvP

Actually they're the best solo class in the game according to the CoH website.  I regularly take groups of 8 equal level mobs or 4 yellows at once with little difficulty. And the PvP general chat is ablaze with anti-stalker threads with nothing be people complaining about how strong they are.  I haven't played PvP or lots of the new classes but I do know that my stalker can take on a lot more opponents at once and survive then my tanker can.

[Fellfrosch]

I've played every class up through level 6, and up to that point (which is admittedly very low) I stand by my statements. Stalkers are the most difficult solo class in the game, with the possibly exception of Corruptors. What I have seen on the forums would seem to back this up (though the higher you get, the harder it is to solo a Dominator). I'm glad that you're having success with yours, and I never said that such success wasn't possible, but compare it to a Brute or a Mastermind and I think you'll find that the Stalker is, while still viable, more difficult to solo.

As for PvP, what I have heard from dozens of people is that Hide is way too easy to see through. While other characters are running around fighting and blasting and waging war, Stalkers are forced to hide, choose their targets, and then run as soon as they've dropped one guy. On the one hand I think this is great, because that's exactly what an assassin is supposed to do, and I'm glad they were able to balance the game in such a way that it encourages this type of thematic play. On the other hand, this play style is incredibly slow, and Stalker are usually only able to rack up a fraction of the PvP kills of any other class. If that doesn't bother you, great, but I know it does bother a lot of people.

The strength of a Stalker in PvP is that they can one-shot almost anything of appropriate level, which is why people are constantly clamoring for a Stalker nerf. I hope that they don't nerf the, because that would seem to lead Stalkers more toward the role of a WoW rogue: an agile, fragile warrior that deals a ton of damage in a long fight. I like the concept of the CoV Stalker much, much better: the hidden assassin who slips in, nails somebody, and slips out again unseen. It's kind of unfair for the squishy classes who get one-shotted, but proper back up and anti-Hide preparation is apparently easy enough to pull off that the only ones a Stalker can really one-shot are the ones who make stupid mistakes.

While I'm discussing strengths, I should point out that Stalker do have one very impressive solo advantage: they can zoom through boss-kill missions like magic. A lot of missions tell you to "take out Boss X and all of his guards," which means you need to kill everything in a mission, but there are some that say "take out Boss X," and allow you to win without worrying about the guards. In a case like this a Stalker can turn on Hide, run to the boss, and kill him in one or two hits to complete the mission and then port back out to safety. Again, I think this is a really cool, thematic thing for an assassin class to be able to do. It's balanced by the fact that you don't get any XP for the guards you bypassed--only the boss XP and the mission bonus. If you use the newspaper and do enough such assassinations, though, I think you might be able to keep up a pretty good rate.

[Entsuropi]

Not planning on trying CoV but thought i'd add a tad on sneaky classes. Generally speaking I hate fighting against them, for the same reason I hated playing against horse archer armies in Rome Total War - I know it's a valid tactic, it's just really boring for me to play. Oh look he just killed me before I could possibly respond, how fun. For the record, I usually used heavy infantry centric armies for Rome - usually Greeks or Carthaginians. Imagine using the slowest units against the fastest units, and see how much fun you have Ended up hosting games myself and kicking anyone who wanted to play horse archer armies (and egypt, which was pure cheese on a scale not seen since the Necrons).

That said, I'm playing a Dirge (a rogue -> bard -> dirge path progression - a super buff class that does good DPS basically) in Everquest 2. It's fun, but I'm probably never taking him into the PvP arenas. Warriors are where it's at for PvP fun for me.

[Fellfrosch]

That's the problem with sneaky classes--there's no interaction and no combat, just boom dead. WoW overcorrected this aspect of rogues, in my opinion, making them less of a sneak and more of a glass cannon, but on the other hand they have a slightly more balanced PvP system than CoV, so maybe they took the better road. Personally I'm glad that CoV is sticking to the one-shot assassin, because it's cool, thematic, and a very unique playstyle...of course, I've never been killed by one, so I might change my opinion later.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

Oddly enough, I've been playing some rogue nwn adventures. making my character in such a way that I can pick all those pockets and get past all the traps and locks, yet not lose the juicy xp from those guards is a tough game to play, but it's been interesting from a strategy side.

Mostly though, I use a ranged weapon, fire when they're just inside sneak attack range (the big hit) then run around a corner and hide. When hiding becomes not an option the encounter turns into run around the map and stop when I've got just enough distance to get a single shot in without letting them get a shot back. Interestingly, these have been some of the most entertaining modules lately, though it's cut out a lot of the roleplaying in favor of a tactical approach.

and ultimately that's the issue. When I roleplay, I want to interact with the other characters. If I don't do that,  then why am I playing a more resource intensive RPG instead of just playing Thief?

[Spriggan]

Well then all the villain classes must suck for PvP than since they're more or less a agreement on the CoV forums that the only villain class worth using in PvP is a Stalker.

And again, I clear out everyone in the missions even if I don't have to and I have no problems jumping into a group of 5 or more mobs and beat them down.

I am an Energy Melee Stalker though, which do more damage the any of the other stalkers on a per-hit basis, but we have the highest energy consumption as well as slow recharge times.

EM/EA=Very high damage, average defense, stun effect, high energy usage, average to slow power recharge/attack speed.  Also they have very lame attack animations compared to the others.

Nin/nin=low damage, high defense, fast attack speed/recharge, stackable armor debuff, low energy usage

MA=low damage, fast attack speed/recharge, low energy usage, crowd control.

Claws=Suckage.  Slow attacks, slow attack animations, low damage due to slow attack animations.

That was a summery from the stalker forums, each Primary power set is designed to do something completely different yet useful.

I didn't know any of that going into making my character so if it's true that could explain why I kill so well.

Anyway, the question is who are you going to actually play now?  And when the crap are you actually going to be on so I can get into your supergroup so I can help build a base?

[Fellfrosch]

I never said Stalkers can't kill things--I specifically noted that they weren't underpowered, just different. What I said is that the other classes solo better, which I still believe to be true. As for PvP, you must be reading different forums than I am.

I don't know which character I'm going to play, though I suspect that most people are pulling for Never or Fragment. I'd honestly be happy with any of them. I think I'm just going to put up a new poll with all ten options and let people pick one (or I might present two more and then do the poll, because I have another character or two that I really like). And as I said in the blog, I've been way too busy the past few days to play more than 30 minutes total. I'm hoping it will pick up soon.

Okay, I've looked around and I think I know where you're coming from. More people complain about Stalkers in PvP than any other class, which would certainly lead to the idea that they are overpowered, but I really don't think that's the case. People hate Stalkers in PvP because it is a class designed solely for ganking--that's all it can do, and that's the single most unfun aspect of any MMORPG ever. So of course people hate them, but that doesn't make them overpowered or unbalanced. Read the stalker forums and most of the people there talk about how PvP with a Stalker is incredibly hard, and there are only a few people who do it well. Get killed ten times by a Brute and you just grin, rez, and go out for a rematch--it's a fun, interactive battle. Get killed just once by a Stalker and you'll complain about it for weeks, because it wasn't fun and there was nothing you could do about it. The Brute still does better and kills more, but the one people hate is the Stalker.

[Fellfrosch]

On a completely different note:

Marvel Entertainment, Inc., NCsoft Corporation, NC Interactive, Inc., Cryptic Studios, Inc. Settle All Litigation

AUSTIN, Texas, December 12, 2005--Marvel Entertainment, Inc., NCsoft® Corporation, NC Interactive, Inc. and Cryptic Studios Inc. are pleased to announce today that they have amicably settled all claims brought by Marvel and all claims brought by NCsoft, NC Interactive, Inc. and Cryptic Studios, Inc. The parties' settlement allows them all to continue to develop and sell exciting and innovative products, but does not reduce the players' ability to express their creativity in making and playing original and exciting characters.  Therefore, no changes to City of Heroes® or City of Villains'; character creation engine are part of the settlement.  The parties have agreed that protecting intellectual property rights is critically important and each will continue aggressively to protect such rights in accordance with all applicable laws.  While the terms of the settlement were not disclosed, all parties agree that this case was never about monetary issues and that the fans of their respective products and characters are the winners in this settlement.

[Fellfrosch]

Okay, sorry for the triple post, but I've been thinking about this and I've decided that I used some bad terminology. I shouldn't have said that the Stalker was the most 'difficult' to solo--instead I'll say that the Stalker is the most frustrating to solo, which is really more of a personal opinion than anything else. Your first strike as a Stalker is golden--you use Assassin's Strike and one-shot whatever you're attacking. For the rest of the group, though (and CoV mobs always travel in groups), you're just in a normal battle doing less damage than a Scrapper with about the same defenses and HP as a Corruptor. It can be done, and it can be done well, but I don't find it fun--only one out of every five or six kills takes advantage of my main identifying feature, and the rest are just part of a competent yet unexciting battle.

Compare this to the Brute, CoV's other melee class, and it's pretty silly: the Brute's inherent ability, Fury, adds a new dynamic to the entire battle rather than just the first strike. It affects every attack and every mob, making them fun and interesting, whereas with the Stalker the remaining mobs are just obstacles in the way of your next cool assassin strike.

But that's just my opinion.