Category: City of Heroes/Villains

Issue 12 does what City of Heroes/Villains does well, and it does a lot of it. When I complain that there is not much there, it means that there is not much there for me, right now. If you are in the mood for the City of Heroes playstyle, this is possibly the best issue ever.

As a reminder, that playstyle is rock ’em, sock ’em action. No one does it better. You start out strong, instead of fighting single rats. Grouping is encouraged but not required, and the content scales perfectly for any size of group. You beat things up constantly, a non-stop roller coaster ride of smashing your foes. If you have a big group, you can sign up for the bigger foes, and the task forces are adding more big guys for those times when you want to fight eight Elite Bosses at once. Inspirations (potions) drop constantly, so use them for free buffs and heals, and enhancements (equipment) are something you worry about for 15 minutes every five levels.

We talk about the leveling versus raiding games in WoW, but the leveling game is what City of Heroes is. You get twelve slots per server, so make lots of alts, and start over if things feel like a drag. You can group with anyone at any level (sidekicks and exemplars), and if you prefer the playstyle at level 10, 20, or whatever, you can flashback there for as long as you like.

Looked at this way, Issue 12 is perfect. You can buy 24 more slots on each server, with a few freebies: no more leaving your friends and home server. Powerset proliferation adds or expands 20 sets, and the villain epic archetypes give you a whole new story to pursue across the levels. I last counted 364 different powerset combinations; that is now 556. Hidden beneath fluff and flavor text, City of Heroes does just the one thing, but there are more ways to do it than you will find anywhere else.

: Zubon

“lolstalkers” has been a long-term issue for City of Villains. It is a great class for running newspaper missions solo or for ganking people in Warburg. For anything else in the game, you will want another class. Stalkers are one-trick ponies: burst damage from stealth. It is a very good trick, the kind of trick that one-shots lieutenants, but that’s all. The last attempt to bring them up to parity went a bit too far, so that small groups of Stalkers could take out Giant Monsters quickly. Now on test:

• Increased Stalker Melee damage multiplier from 0.9 base to 1.0 base.
• Increased Stalker Hit Points multiplier from 0.95 to 1.125
• All Stalker melee attacks now have a chance to critical while not hidden. This chance is equal to 10% plus 3% per additional team member within 30’ of the stalker at the time of the attack. This only applies to PVE targets. Stalkers old chance to critical Held or Slept targets now only applies to PVP targets.
• The Critical portion of Energy Transfer operates exactly as if you were criticalling from Hide — it eliminates the Self Damage, rather than increasing damage to the target.
• Using an Assassination attack and missing will no longer suppress Hide (though lesser stealth and invisibility powers will still suppress) if the attack misses. If the attack hits, Hide suppresses normally.
• Hide Suppression for Stalkers reduced from 10 seconds to 8 seconds.
• Assassination attacks now cause a demoralizing effect on PVE targets that survive the attack. Demoralized targets To Hit value is reduced, and the target may be frozen in terror.

Adding all those together, that is about a 50% sustained DPS increase in full groups, plus more survivability and utility. Is this enough without scaling Assassin Strike? Is Assassin Strike love coming? Stay tuned!

: Zubon

My favorite bugs for this patch are not officially “known issues,” although this one is a humdinger: “Using the /option_toggle command will cause a client crash.”

• Pets now ignore targets under the effect of knockback. My favorite villain character has pets who knockback their enemies. Crap.
• The final encounter of the new task force is currently somewhat easier than intended because you can snipe 3/4 of it to death without getting any aggro.
• One of the quality of life improvements was giving you more options on your chat channels. Now global chat channels change color every time you zone.
• Another lets you re-organize your characters on the log-in screen, handy when you have up to 36 characters. If you do so, it does not save, and instead re-re-orders them every time you log on. My character list consistently starts with a blank slot that it encourages me to buy.
• Ironically, every time you zone you get the message “Invalid Command ClearSpam.”
• The hero arc to unlock the Midnighter’s Club makes a neat use of the crafting system by having you create a cure for The Lost. It requires five pieces of salvage, which you receive for completing the story arc missions. If you complete them on a team, only one person gets the salvage, although everyone gets the “Mission complete!” Meaning that you have now finished the one source for that salvage without, you know, getting that salvage.

There are probably more. Personally, I might have waited until after the first bug-fixing patch to re-activate all accounts for the weekend to let people try this. But that’s not my call.

: Zubon

I have played through all the new Issue 12 content you can with an existing hero. It is a long evening of play: a story arc to unlock the Midnighter’s Club, reading things in the Midnighter’s Club, a new task force, look at architecture on the new island, a few missions that are all about reading backstory, and a contact with endless template missions. The new gameplay is pretty much that task force. The new enemy group has fewer than a dozen enemies in it, so you mostly fight the same three minions, one lieutenant, and one boss until you hit an elite boss or three. The last mission includes “defeat 300” of these, so you will be on that map for a while. The guys in my supergroup want that Oracle costume for all their female characters.

This is a time for new characters. I have one more villain story arc to try, then the remaining new content is the villain epic archetype. There are some new powers to try, but most of Power Proliferation is porting existing powers to different archetypes. I can’t knock that, as we had a hoot rampaging with low-level characters using the proliferated powers, but it is a new way of hitting old content. Oh, and I should poke around the redecorated Hollows more, although we hit the zone on our new characters.

Issue 11 recycled old content via flashbacks. Issue 12 recycles old content via new characters. I am hoping that Issue 13 has more new content, although I am not expecting it until October. We are somewhat slower than the stated plan of three new issues per year, although I suppose we could count 11.5 as a significant update. It just feels like Turbine puts out this much content every month or two for its games.

: Zubon

The new boss type is named “Praefectus Castorum.” Not “those perfect scrotum guys.”

: Zubon

Patch Notes

Highlights include villain epic archetypes, powerset proliferation, a new zone, and many quality of life improvements. They are also starting to sell extra character slots, and you get two free for “a while.” I had to re-subscribe for the anniversary badge, because I am weak.

The amount of new content is limited, but there are many ways to re-experience the old content. We were having fun tonight with a team of Fire Scrappers and Plant Controllers. If you want a free trial or welcome back code (15 free days with purchase of a month, must have been gone for 90), mention it in the comments and I will send it to the e-mail address you list.

: Zubon

Full disclosure: if I send you a code and you spend money, I get some free time. If you have a friend who plays, have him send you a code and he will get the free time.

Yes, the upcoming issue (now in open beta) includes a new zone and task force, villain epic archetypes, and power set proliferation. But have you seen the quality of life changes? The patch notes for just that section run 1,421 words, with more in the full notes. They include saving local settings (for importing to your next alt), saving notes and ratings for other players, more power trays and interface options, revamped chat and hide systems, linkable item and power names (like most new games have), more combat attribute window options, in-depth power information, a new contact user interface, and a list of smaller changes like map notification of zonewide events. I want to note this one, for lovers of real numbers:

In-Depth Power Information
Detailed Power Information is now available at Power Selection, Level up, Respec, and Enhancement placing screen as well as a new tab in the info window. This information shows the powers basic data along with every effect the power has.

• There is a slider to see the effect of the power across all levels.
• There is a class selector to see how the power would perform for each class.
• There is a PvP toggle to see how powers will change in PvP.
• Powers that spawn pets will show all powers the pets use and their effects.

: Zubon