[City of Villains] I mentioned recently that our SG made a few Brutes to rampage through low-level content. Since most of our members are playing less until Issue 7, I have been playing the Brute a bit, soloing and in pickup groups.
It has been a blast. And now, some comments on playing a Brute.
[City of Heroes] In Paragon City, we do not kill our foes. We arrest them. With assault rifles, trip mines, and fiery blasts. Yep.
: Zubon
[Kingdom of Loathing] Back at the Kingdom, 15 new skills have been added to the game. The long-term plan is to fight the Naughty Sorceress at level 15, not 11. The skills expanding the game in that direction are now mostly in, with the additional quests and such to follow as content is completed.
A bunch of new skills are now available from your friendly neighborhood Guild Trainer. All classes now have skills up to level 14, except Turtle Tamers, who only got a level 13 skill, and Accordion Thieves, who got their skills all the way to 15.
Discussion thread is here. As ever, new friends are welcome in the Kingdom. :)
: Zubon
[City of Heroes] I really like making level 6 characters. It is a great way to spend an evening. If you have not played City of Heroes, get a few friends and a few trial codes and give it a shot.
Get a team of three or four people together on Teamspeak or Ventrilo. You can get to level 5 or 6 in a couple of hours. Fire up Heroes or Villains, and each of you design whatever character you like. Almost all of them work well together. My SG has had fun making the same sort of character to try out, so one night we had three Fire/Fire Brutes and a Dark/Dark Brute rambling around.
Do your first contact worth of missions. Play, run, crash, whatever. You will get to level 5 or 6. In that time, there is no death penalty. You start out with two powers and will get to pick three more that night. You will level 5 times in a single evening and go through a small story or two in the missions. You will not need to worry about when folks will be on, what levels everyone is, or anything else that creates problems in forming teams: you are all the same level, and you need not see those characters after that night. You get to try something new. No grinding, no worries, just a bit of very fast play with lots of instant gratification.
And if you find that you really like one of them, congrats, you have someone new to take to higher levels. Try it out a few times, and you and all your friends will have some level 6 characters on that server. Now you can all decide what to play and try some of the other content together.
: Zubon
[City of Heroes] Just for the record, if the level cap for City of Heroes/Villains ever rises from 50, I am quitting and never coming back. WoW is about to raise its cap, and the idea sees occasional play with respect to CoX.
Two reasons: first, I will feel obliged to level my 50s to 60. My original level 50 is my “do everything” character, so I will naturally send her through everything I can and get all the badges available. Even if I enjoy it, it would be fairly grindy to do that with multiple characters. Why do I need to do that? Besides the natural feeling of wanting to “beat the game,” enough of my friends would feel that desire such that I would either grind towards the new level cap or need new friends for a good while.
Second, I have done a lot of Hamidon raids. Enhancements are only effective for a few levels after you get them, which means every one would be worthless by level 60. I like not worrying about loot in City of Heroes; the once-a-week Hamidon raid fulfills all my needs in that respect. If I am going to throw all that away, I might as well toss the rest of the game with it. Those of you raiding to get equipment to be able to do the next raid to…? That is not a game I am playing.
More things to do at 50? Fine and good. More levels past it? I’m out.
: Zubon
In City of Heroes, before Enhancement Diversification, I could two-shot groups of yellow minions easily. Now I can two-shot groups of green minions easily. I can wipe out grays by the score and use knockback to send them further than a football field.
Ignoring leveling speed, it really should not make any difference whether you are beating up a green minion or an orange one. It is the same Freak Slammer. The level difference only affects the numbers over his head. Many games make you strong enough to fight only one even-level monster, but you could fight two or three lower level enemies at time. It is the same goblin, just with a different number.
I don’t know about you, but I have always considered “slow” to be a fairly sub-optimal power. Of all the things I can do to my enemy, slowing him down a bit seemed like the least useful. Some of this must come from starting in Asheron’s Call, where there were no slow powers (or any crowd control to speak of, when I played). Mostly, it comes from most enemies’ living only a few seconds. In the time that I could slow him down, I could blow him up.
Lately, though, I have been seeing a lot of value in it.
[City of Villains] The launch of City of Villains was Issue 6, with little on the heroes side (except the overlap PvP content). Issue 7 is coming, again mostly villains stuff. Luckily, most of my supergroup has City of Villains, so everyone has been on. Until recently.
We are now at that point when everyone is bored and will be logging on a couple hours a week until the new patch is on test. At first it is a few people. There are fewer people to group with from the SG, so a few more wander off. Next, you are soloing or in pick-up groups for a month, so maybe you join them in the logged-off state. Hmm, I can check out a new game for a while…
Of course, for me, that has meant more time badge-whoring on my old main and playing Kingdom of Loathing. Guys, come back! We miss you! Issue 7 is coming, really!
: Zubon
My most used quote for the day: “There is a ‘Find’ button under Team that lists which players are looking for teams.” I am thinking of making a macro to tell people that. Because there is a system to help you find teammates. It might be worth using it.
: Zubon
[Kingdom of Loathing] For those interested in such things, several people tried for one-day Ascensions (i.e., beat the game) in Kingdom of Loathing yesterday. They were coming off Hardcore-Oxygenarian (max difficulty) runs and donated a good amount of the money to have maximum rewards/resources. Bashy seemed the most likely, being perhaps the most prominent player in the Kingdom. He has…everything. Mysticality day, a good donation item, coming off an Oxycore run… good times.
This thread tracks the progress of several of the runners, along with commentary and cheerleading. Or, if you want to cut to the chase, read after the break.