Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION The Anywhere Machine City of Heroes: Your Chance to be a Legionnaire

Thanks Vee! I'll have to hunt down the map and print it out to have handy. The store locations is just something I have not gotten down yet at all.

It's not meant to be printed Scott (although I suppose you can) It actually replaces the In GAME map so that when you pull up the map, the stores are all marked on it like your contacts and trainers are.

That's even better. That makes the first non-CoH add-on I've heard of then.

You get get the map patch at Heroes Hideaway

You'll find it listed under downloads.

I really want to enjoy playing controllers more, my favorite comic characters tend to have controller-type powers, but they can be such a pain in the game. I see the use of then but a lot of times I get frustrated with feeling like I'm just standing around waiting for my knockout power to recharge while the rest of the team does their stuff.

(BTW, you know I'm going to be pretty much useless in our final battle. Last I heard controllers can't affect ArchVillains, leaving me to stand around and, use my heal aura power I guess. Not that I won't try and scream when it doesn't work.)

Blasters are a fun AT. I think I'd like to try playing my dark/dark defender in a all-def team. I hear those get quite strong once you start stacking those debuffs and buffs.

Lyle: I can promise you that you'll be VERY busy during our final battle! As someone who's been the primary healer for our little quite often, I know that we take a great deal of tender loving care. (Especially Garth!)

You, Doc, and Grev will have your hands full keeping us all alive. You won't have time to do much standing around.

Hey! Garth's getting better. Of course last time he didn't have Mysa to die for.

Hmmm... I seem to remember Doc having to Rez Garth on Wednesday... hee hee!

Looking forward to the game.... anyone know who the Arch-Villian is for this TF? I've faced Dr. Vahzilok before in a regular story-arc, and he gave me the beating of a lifetime.

Anyway, i've got my Healing powers enhanced to the max with DO's.. hope that's enough!

That is one difference, I am playing missions, tho I'm mostly use it to keep me interested. I go on kill sprees on the way to the mish and get a lot of XP that way and then the mish breaks up the monotony of the hunt. I wasn't thinking that it added a lot to my time but I guess it does.

BTW, what's up with the indoor mish where the bad guy's levels suddenly drop? Suddenly you're "arresting" bad guys with one hit of brawl.

The new update is supposed to go live soon on the test server. I'm thinking of going through the process of getting access to the test server. Anyone interested in teaming there?

Another interesting tidbit of info from the CoH Boards (Blasters Forum) but interesting info for everyone:

Posted by RsRobinson in "A Powerlevelers Guide To BlasterS"
*****
"A tip for fighting street mobs. Spawns are done on demand, when a
player gets near them. The mobs have a level range depending on
where they are. However, most often a mob will spawn in level
based on the player who spawned it. So, if the mobs range in
level from 26 to 29 and you are level 26, you'll see a mix. If
you are level 29, you will almost always see only level 29s. This
is good, street fighting less than whites is a waste of time.
But, it means you want to be as alone as you can be. If you have
lower-level players running around triggering the spawns, you
will find yourself frustrated with lots of greens and blues."

*******

I enjoy groups more than soloing so I won't be taking his advice about being "as alone as possible" but for our Legion (& other) group's purposes, it sounds as if the higher level heroes should be the ones scouting ahead so we get higher level mobs.

Seems like I'm running into lots of those front loaded missions as well. We did one recently with the Peanuts gang (all of us 6-8) that started out with one group of 6s, then one group of 5s and then everyone else was a 3 or 2.

I was going to last time and never got around to it. Maybe I'll try again.

Ah, I thought we faced off with Dr Vaz in this mish, guess that happens in a storyline. So maybe I'll be of use in the final battle after all.

Can't wait to play this TF.

You know what I like about CoH? The different roles each archetype brings and the MMO aspect requires some strategic thinking that changes every time. Losing one player can require a totally different play style (and this group is great at that).

According to the CoH Forum the Positron TF is: The Rule of Three - Dam piece - Steel Canyon - Clockwork

But I seem to think we got a cave mish last time (for some reason I think it was 5ths but that doesn't sound right. Caves are ususally Vaz.). Does anyone else remember?

It was a sewer or cave filled with 16th level Vaz Abominations. The image of us all dying within a minute is forever etched in my brain.

I agree, you really need to cooperate with each other as a real team would. Our advantage is that we know each other fairly well and most of us have been playing together right from the start. So we know what to expect from each other.

When Mysa's along, everyone takes more chances because the expect here to keep them alive. For example, she knows that Garth tends to hang further back from the others because he is more accurate that way, so she keeps the eye in the back of her head open. Conversly, Tasmia has bloodlust and goes charging far ahead of the others, so she needs to constantly be marking her location so she can get to her with Heal Other (Tas is often out of range of Healing Aura.) You can't expect healers that you just run into online to know that or to even really care about it.

We also know each others powers fairly well and know who should be doing what. Condo & Shadow Lad both have powerful snipes. When combined, they can be pretty devastating. Your Confuse power can work wonders in whitling down a too large mob before we engage them. The only way you get these advantages is by teaming with the same people all the time.

I don't think I was alive long enough to register anything in long term memory other than entering the cave.

A cool tease from the CoH forums:

"'ll let this slip...

Epic Archetypes possess Power Sets that no one else can get; they'll mix together elements of ALL categories (Ranged, Defense, Control, etc.). In effect, they have the potential to be Tank Mages.

BUT every Epic Archetype comes with a set of weaknessess to balance out their strengths... "

Oooooh.

From a GenCon recap:
"Q: Will the game eventually have the ability for players to generate their own story arcs? For example, my character's sister was killed by the Hellions, so I want to create an arc where he hunts down the Hellions and eventually brings her killer to justice.
A: Not exactly. Allowing players to generate content on their own doesn't allow us to gaurantee quality. But we are adding many more branches to story arcs in the future, to allow you to see different results based on choices made in the earlier parts of the arc. We also plan to have the overall game world affected by missions - for example, if not enough people do their Family missions, the mob may take over more areas of the city since no one is keeping them in check.

Q: Is there an open-ended development process for adding more character creation choices, or is there a point where you'll say it's finished and no more will be added?
A: Always more. Some ideas we're kicking around now: longer capes, trenchcoats, skirts, pirate and ninja costume components, more shoe options.

Q: What new things are planned to make SuperGroups more interesting?
A: Bases are coming in City of Villans. We would like to have SG-specific missions as soon as we figure out a good way to implement it, but it won't be soon. There may be vehicles that are owned by the supergroup, but again not soon. Temporary powers are something that might be granted at the SG base as well, we're still working on that idea (example: getting a jet pack to have limited flight).

Q: Why can you not buy inspirations while on a Task Force?
A: It's a coding issue. We're going to change it eventually, but it's not the highest priority right now.

Q: When can we change the look of our powers?
A: You'll be able to change the color of the power effects soon. Can't commit to a specific time yet. Eventually you'll also be able to choose from multiple different animations for powers, but that's a LONG way off due to the amount of work involved.

Q: What can you tell us about Martial Arts changes?
A: Storm Kick is safe, no changes planned. Several other powers will be changed to have shorter animations. The change might be as soon as issue 2, but more likely afterward. This may seem like a slow process, but remember that EVERYTHING we do is slow, to avoid breaking the game.

Q: Will we see suburban residential zones?
A: Eventually, yes. Also we will have an airport, and some fixes to some of the weirder effects. For example, we hope to prevent cars from weaving all over the street like drunk drivers. This is low on the priority list, though.

Q: Any plans to implement Secret Identities?
A: We already did - you are your hero's secret ID. In-game, we haven't yet found a convincing way to do secret identities and keep the game fun while you're out of costume. The ability to change your costume into street clothes will have to do for now.

Q: Are there plans for a tutorial to help people understand their character better? For example, teaching an AoE blaster how to avoid drawing all the aggro?
A: That's a good idea, I'd never considered that. We'd certainly make it optional if we do put something like that in. On a related note, Outbreak will become optional in Issue 2.

arious misc. things that came up during the QA, but were not direct answers:
- The Super Secret Non Combat System will be in Issue 3
- I do not care how fast people level. The key criteria is that it must be FUN, so that you'll want to keep playing even after you've leveled up your character.
- I consider an exploit to be anything that rewards boring behavior. The Smoke Grenade bug is an example - it's about as fun as "poking yourself in the eye" (direct quote) but people do it since they level faster.
- Eventually instanced missions may have an interactive environment, since griefing won't be as much of a problem. "

Lot's of cool stuff going on in "Statesman's" mind.

Ah, here's the post that I was searching through the CoH forums for in the first place:

"This is a quick guide for other folks who, like me, are new to the Positron Task Force mission. It's great fun and good exp.

Several posts here mention how hard it is (repeated deaths and multiple attempts), but it doesn't need to be that way. We -- a group of stranger newbs -- did it without no team deaths and in about five 1/2 hours.

Could easily have shaved nearly an hour with simple tactics listed below. Some teams do it in under four, but I expect you'd need to be familiar with the sequence to do so.

You can find this info scattered on other threads, but here's a compliation:

- Start it by speaking with Positron in SC. You need a team of 3-8, levels 10-16.
- Totally possible with 3 chrs, but by starting with 6, we did fine even after losing two.
- It's ok if level 16 chrs level up to 17 during the mission.
- It's challenging. Low levels will have a hard time.
- It takes roughly 5 hours: 6 for a slower team, 4 for a fast one.
- You get a nice goody at the end. Keep an enhancement slot free.
- You can't recruit more chrs for the Task Force, so get a good crew.
- Players who Quit from the Menu bar, rather than Quit Task Force, might be able to rejoin when they log back on. We didn't test this.
- I did my recruiting next to Positron, looking for team-minded players who wanted to go all the way through.

The Task Force goes through a series of missions provided by Positron. I won't detail any spoilers here -- if you want to know the specifics, they're on other threads.


General Tactics:
I don't see any reason players why need to die -- or, worse, fail at the TF - with good team play.

The two most important:

- Start your battles when everyone is ready.
This is the simplest, most-obvious team rule and yet it's routinely ignored. If you've played any time at all in Perez or Boomtown, you've seen some schmo pick a fight when your group is out of Endurance, missing a player who's afk, or already attacking a nearby group.
Don't be a schmo, or tolerate them in your group. A simple "rdy?' takes seconds and makes for faster, more efficient fights.

- Know your roles.
As a controller, mine was to hold threatening targets while picking off the weak threats (like Embalms, who are dangerous, but easy kills, while the Blasters killed the Mires and Murks). We had another guy who did all our pulls/sniping, etc.
We also decided by default to kill the biggest baddies from Left to Right unless otherwise discussed; that helped us kill quickly rather than just wounding.

All this took us less than a minute of communcation per map ("rdy?" "Murk, Mire, then Lum?". "top of stairs first?"), and it was priceless.


Positron TF Tactics:

- Choose a diverse team.
You'll want someone for crowd control (Controllers, of course, but possible to use a Tanker at this level, or even some Defs), and a ranged attack (Blaster, really). Healers are extremely helpful, as is a frontliner, like a Scrapper, but really any mixed combo wil do.

Our team:
15 Blast
16 Control (me)
15 Def (our healer)
12 Scrapper (sk'ed with me. did fine.)
and two other 14/15 Blasts for halfway.

- Send the Team leader to talk with Positron. Send others to do the Fed-Ex tasks (some missions are combat, some are "fetch" missions requiring only one TF member to go).
Leaving the leader with Positron makes it go faster, as does having the others gather at the tram station in the meantime. Eventually, the leader can Call to Postiron.
- Use your tp's, if you have any, to leapfrog maps. We had one guy go straight to the mission while another tp'ed from the tram.
ASKING before a tp is both polite and good strategy. If you haven't yet seen a tp'ed teammate run unaware into a nearby group of baddies, you will.

- Use the first mission as a gauge.
It's one of the hardest, and you'll get to see how your team performs. If you're falling apart already, you have a loooong path ahead of you. But if you work well as a group, you probably will like the next missions, too.

Enjoy! It's great fun. "

We've reviewed most of this, but I liked how the poster put it all together.

Like you, I can't wait for the TF!

My connection problems seem to hit more when
I'm on a team. Soloing I don't lose the server
nearly as much as I do on a team.

I just checked. It took less than 16 hours
of play to get Charlie Brown up to level 10
as that's how long I've played him total.

Xander 2.0 seemed to reach 10 at a ridiculously
high rate of speed as well.

I think it's not really that hard to reach level
5 at all ... at least not for blasters. My
controllers tend to find it a bit harder!

Really?

I love devices. I wish I had taken that as a
secondary for Blue Battler rather than fire.
I found web grenade particularly handy for locking down runners for Xander 2.0. Jesse the
Drone looks cool, but the sound effect is
annoying, and the accuracy is still not as high
as I'd like it to be.

Lyle, I was running one of my fire/empathy
controllers with a friend last night. She
sk'd me so I was up from level 7 to level 13,
and I have to tell you that I had a blast. I
didn't really do a lot of damage to the baddies
myself, but I did a great job of containing
them so that her scrapper didn't have to chase
them all over creation and didnt have to worry
about being ganged up on.

And is it that Controllers can't affect the
big bosses at all or just can't lock them
down? It'd be darn unfair if Cinders or Propel
or some other controller attack power i can't
think of atm wouldn't work at all on the big
guys.