Kill Ten Rats

[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.

Continue reading Nasty, Brutish, and Short

[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

[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