Chargen related question for Guild Wars 2.

Who should I name, Fiddlesticks.

A) Asura Warrior.  Tiny one foot tall man, big weapon.
B) Sylvari Elementalist.  Tree man loves fire.

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Also, been doing some Champs research.  Double also, Koo's picked it up, bought some costume stuff (the robot dragon stuff for example), and told me today they saw John on there.

From here is rambling about game mechanics. Feel free to ignore.  Though there is a link to online build planner (offline champs builder seems defunct), and a Mixed Guns with Melee build link at the end.  Because I remember Tim thinking about that for Angel

The champs wiki has some flaws, power entries exist but not all are on the big lists.  Example, Concentration, a kickass Technology group power, is not listed on the Munitions power list.

My plan when I eventually get back to the game is Munitions style guy, with a slant towards defense outsourcing into the Martial arts goodies instead of raw damage.  (This will mean I will have less base damage too, since can't equip a Defensive Slotted Passive, when set to Ranged Damage Role).

Still, Tanky Blaster is a Real Thing.  Whoo Tread.

Do NOT use power armor powers that are "toggle" without consulting me though because holy censored, that power set has some special mechanics traps for uninformed players.  Targeting Computer Slotted Passive is pretty sweet if you want a focus on "Bullets hurt more" though.

Pro Tip: you can retcon out your early "default non energy builder attack" for a Tier 1 power you like better.  Even the premade Archetypes do this (The Soldier, has Assault Rifle as it's first non-Builder power, and doesn't have Two Gun Mojo at all).

Where was I?  Oh, right.  Trying to figure how much of a balance can be pulled off for mix of Guns and Melee (outside of Munitions sole melee attack power), if not stats effectively, at the very least complimenting itself with it's powers.  I'll be taking a stack of martial arts utility powers myself after all for Ninjas Don't Use Guns.

http://powerhouse.nullware.com/powerhouse.html

web builder!  The old offline builder which is even linked off the wiki seems kinda defunct, at the very least not working on implementing the "three days before city closing announcement"  Batman Nighthawk Patch.

The Minimal Rules For Char Building:

Your first levels shall include, in whatever order.

At least one solid single target; Energy builder does not count.

At least one solid Area attack; Minion mulching.  Shotgun, I LOVE YOU.

Your innate Passive benefits power;  For example, Ionic Reverberation if you were Electric, for energy back from electric effects

A Slotted Passive Power;  Keep in mind slotted passives require certain roles, if you are freeform you can swap between role modes.  Recently they have been tweaked to be more awesome ("Avenger" role is gone, the new damage roles don't lower your health)
   Hybrid is the default role which can use any slotted passive.  This is it's only benefit.
   Ranged damage and Melee damage roles can only use offensive passives.  They get bonus damage by default, better damage scaling from stats, less aggro, better energy, better control resistance.
   Tank role can only use defensive Slotted passives.  You are more tanky, you draw more aggro.  No base free damage bonus, but your stats give more value for damage.
   Support Role.  Can only use support Slotted passives. (Oh right, I forgot there was a third kind of slotted passive).  Which are only found in Sorcery, Celestial, and Gadgeteering's Medical Nanites.

  With the ways roles work, looks like my Dodgey Gunner ninja may end up with Tanker Role -.o  Not that I'd notice the aggro difference when solo.

Thrown together Munitions with more Melee attacks  (remember, level 5 is "I skipped the tutorial" Level, so level 6 is just one level past fresh tutorial skip start.  Link had to be split in half cause characters.  you would have to retcon out Two-Guns Mojo.

http://powerhouse.nullware.com...860083009A0089008500
DJ00DK008800IB00DL00D7008J008F003UbL3bhy0CAT

It could work, it's more focused on the guns technically, really the only "outside the box" dipping into unarmed is picking up Dragon kick (or, AoE melee of choice).  Retaliation is the Might Pool block, but it benefits "natural" ranged packing characters more than Martial arts type block (bonuses to ALL damage, plus knockback option.  vs bonus to melee only).  You could be a bit energy hungry due to Ego/Strength secondary, but puts more weight behind Angel bunny kicks.

It just might even outdo my own plan in the ass kicking department since it can go full bore damage.  Vindicator Mastery = Ranged damage stat helps melee, and Melee damage stat helps ranged.
This message was last edited by the player at 12:30, Thu 06 Sept 2012.

Costume parts unlock related

This was posted by a new player in SA, and Raikoo confirms this.

"I tried downloading this and oh jesus the character creator is fucked. I literally could not access 90% of the freely available parts without mashing the "random" button until I saw them pop up, the dropdowns were giving me nothing.

Am I just doing something horribly wrong, or is it really that bad off? I played this during the open beta and had no real problem with it, so did they just horribly fuck it up over the years? "

"You have to finish the tutorial first.

What you want to do is make a throwaway character, finish the tutorial, delete it, and have all the pieces for your real character (Who can now skip the tutorial.) "

Since you both already have accounts though, shouldn't be an issue unless you make a new account. (my old one has SEVENTEEN CHARACTER SLOTS for whatever reason now).

huge rambling about hamidon lore post.  So it turns out the CoH Bible I downloaded (among the LOTS of Lore PDFs I linke to.) Clears up that it's just as generic as I thought.  But provided some finer details, and some "Future plans" bits..

Oh wow.  Hamidon full backstory in the CoH Bible PDF from that PILES OF LORE link I put up.  A goon said to check in there when I was asking if anybody knew the full deal.  Guess this means there isn't any In Game Lore to dig up beyond "Hamidon Pasalima turned himself into a monster with science and magic".

Some further specific details.  Hamidon was Indonesian, broke into a Paragon City lab over Christmas break with the aid of a few super powered more traditional eco terrorists because other labs that had his needs were kerploded across the globe in the Rikti War (one super had Telepathy, the other had invisibility).  His Big plan, use his native roots ritual magic amped with Cellular lab equipment to make Sentient Super Bacteria.

Campus security shows up and catches them as they finish up.  Lone super shows up.  Hamidon goes desperate cliche and chugs the stuff.  Then kills hero and eats most of the eco terrorists that were helping him (so, he started THAT trend early).  Escapes into underground, eventually coughs up mutated ecoterrorists he ate.  The telepathic Ecoterrorist he ate is why DE goons have a psychic com link/see without eyeballs.  The invisibility ecoterrorist is Oh Thank God Never Mentioned Again.

So, the group name Devouring Earth comes from the fact their boss eats them.  How nice.

Hammidon goes on people eating rampage, then gets almost completely eradicated because that attracts attention.  Only hammidon and two DE monsters survive, but they make off with unconscious "Generic strength/toughness" hero and Hamidon eats them... Aaand ate the two surviving DE monsters.  Then spit them out as Boss Monsters.  Thus beginning Hamidons equal opportunity snack habits.  Eating Supers is what = Make a Devourerd/Greater Devoured.

So, hamidon is a generic blob monster/powers copier (only when the plot demands it.  Ate several super teams in the lore bits and NADA).  Blah blah, wants to eat everyone, knows this fact is bad PR so likes leaving behind more generic ecoterrorist messages written in blood.  (one funny example is justifing bank attacks with 'polluting companies have money in banks!').

CoH bible wise, Hammidon is a blobby mouth tentacle monster (like on those billboards in Praetoria show), and the giant cellular monster "Hamidon" is a special purpose broken off piece of him.  Despite the fact IN GAME it outright says that thing IS Hammidon on it's info, let alone name.  Still, it would make more sense that Hammidon is yet another "Background Boss" while the Hamidon Raid one is his "greatest force he can only create in the giant zone he basically owns".

  Unless in game lore wise, a Rikti raid is supposed to be "Defating Hammidon" in the same way in game lore wise, the final Incarnate Trial Kills Tyrant and blows up most of Praetoria, despite the fact Praetoria and Tyrant are still there to everybody in game.  Or how Countess Crey is only known to be evil by the game world after X level, but she's still there when you are level 50.

Villain groups Hamidon hates and vice verca.

The Lost:  Underground dwellers who want to mutate people into their cause rivalry.
The Rikti: Tend to teleport away instead of deal with the jerks forces. (Except when they tried to harness "Weekend hammidon" for power source needs.
Crey: Well, DUH.  The only reason Hamidon cant decide if he hates The Lost, or Crey more is because their forces aren't constantly running into Crey in tunnels.  Also, sweet sweet lab equipment, hami wants.
Nemesis: Dang steampunkers and their plots!
Circle of thorns: Can't get into the Oranbega zones, this annoys him.  Also annoyed that an order of ancient body snatching mages knows more about magic than his "Equivalent of Native American = magical rituals training".  Gee, what a shock.

Hero groups he hates.
Dawn Patrol: ...who are those guys again?

Oh... http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Dawn_Patrol

Yeah, pretty sure some things changed from the Development notes to in game "Oh hey the entire dawn patrol is DEAD"  Except for Lady Jane.

Lore reasons anybody would ever pay attention to something that wants to eat them.  Feel Like A Gullible Hippie Spores basically.  Hammidon is currently "stuck" in paragon because he so fat yo.  His DE entities are a lot more easy to because, you know.  Box of rocks and mold.  Potential future plans implication that they want to check out sea life, pissing off underwater factions (like say, the Coralax.)

Fun Fact: Look and feel section describes "Use Quake style colors except for the plant monsters"

I don't know how many of these are real, since they are labeled as level FIVE missions.  But one includes "Prevent DE from contaminating food for school lunch program".  And a Level Seven included going after Nemesis forces attacking a sports drink company warehouse, only to find they are kicking the ass of DE forces that were trying to contaminate the drinks.  (Foolish DE, they are no match for tamper proof cap warnings!).

"Future" Enemy types:

Amoeba men:  Stack of basketball sized Amoebas clumped into person shape.

Beasts of vengeance: Animals eaten and turned into bipedal animal creatures. Few months long growth cycle. Use cavemen weapons (clubs, bow and arrows favoring poisoned arrows).  Genetically infused with knowing martial arts by instince (Magic/science can do anything!).  Their benefits to hamidon.  Can make babies all by themselves.  Their flaws, just animal people and not as dangerous compared to traditional Hamidon DE enemies.  So I guess these guys would be to the DE, what the Lost are to Rikti?  Or the transition from Arachnos soldiers to OH GOD TARANTULA WIDOWS.

Serpent swarms: A pile of snakes physically and mentally fused to together into a person shaped lump.  Sensing a trend here.

Also mention of "possibly infecting zombies, to make them walk around then explore in a mass of DE juice.  But that might be a bad idea due to cultural sensitivities".   But oh look, that's what the Embalmed Zombies do.
This message was last edited by the player at 08:48, Sun 09 Sept 2012.

Here all this time I'd assumed the DE was CoX's equivalent of the Weapons in FF7.  Crazy kill-everything-on-sight "defenders of the planet."

If it makes you feel better, that's what the DE call themselves and act like in game.  Plus all of us never did the contact arc in game that revealed "He was scientist" by his old girlfriend.  Who you rescue, but then gets kidnapped AGAIN because the GM didn't want her rescued clearly.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:47, Mon 10 Sept 2012.

Things you learn.  Realization that I've only actually gone through Vanguard plot arcs with Villains... So I missed the Hero side revelation 'oh wait Nemesis is responsible for the Rikti war' (Automatons of Freedom Phalanx frame job)  Despite earlier, 'both heroes and villains get these' missions suggestion it was Praetorians.

Neat. :) Yeah, I only just found out that Chris has not been to either the Shadow Shard stuff (Well.. MOST of it anyway), nor has he been to First Ward (and consequently, Night Ward). So I plan to yank him along with me to see them. They are great sights.

Well, I almost, but not quite made it through the Dark Astoria stuff despite playing nonstop since you guys left.  In the final minutes, the last mission was just too massive on too large a map, even with a horde of NPCs helping, including Lord Recluse.



Too much time spent with RL, cramming other things in, etc I guess.  Teaming up with anybody was out, as Tim triggered everything in the first contact so I missed everything with that one that wasn't a stop everything cutscene, so what odds would teaming with complete strangers have of me seeing anything?

I'll blame the bitterness on the game closing, I had plenty of time and could have pulled if off if I did it in the months since the announcement, I know I can only blame myself and I don't actually regret spending the time with you guys, even just to screw around.  Still...

Looks like Alloy couldn't stop the end of the world, after all.  Made worse because it means I couldn't save "Oh look, the ancient Goddess Source Of All Magic is Tall Angel Bard"

http://img845.imageshack.us/im...htielekkucropjpg.jpg

Some Archmage Alloy turned out to be...



Even if I did abort, the game would have just done it for me in thirty seconds.
This message was last edited by the player at 09:36, Sat 01 Dec 2012.

Bluuuuh.  I just blew over half my leftover Money Points to grab the Sci-Fi Moon base (tooltip it said I had coupons, but the dropdown said no coupons).  I go to the hideouts menu after buying it and oh look a "free claim" button... Oh look, I could have gotten the Tech Moonbase for FREE -.-  Thanks for telling me game.

So I grabbed one of the other four options, the Arcane Sanctum so at least now I have both science and magic bases.  Next time you both log on, press the hideouts button on the mini map compass to see if you can claim one for free from account age or something.

At least I have enough points leftover to buy one  normal price costume bundle... Blah, I would have had enough for two, maybe three.
This message was last edited by the player at 08:33, Wed 05 Dec 2012.

doh!  thanks for the heads-up.

Will do.

Turns out literally TODAY (as of when we were playing) is when they finally made the account linking of old Cryptic accounts mandatory.  TIMING.

I guess that's what the bright red letters "Launcher maintenance" when I had my launcher open meant earlier.

I vaguely remember setting up my original CoX account made me want to punch something.  "You mistyped the capcha.  Now re-enter EVERYTHING you entered into this form."  Over and over and over.  WoW account re-setup made me want to punch Blizzard.  "Your account has been locked AGAIN because not playing for a few days is suspicious activity."  (So I was told by help guy on phone.)  Seems a common theme for MMOs these days to suck like the vacuum of space when it comes to account management.  WoW forced folks to switch to a blizzcom account at one point.  I have a vague recollection that when NCSoft bought out CoX, I had to make a new account.  Every time it was a torturously tedious process.

In my 4-5 years or so experience with database management, it's much better (and much cheaper) to leave well enough alone than to make massive unnecessary changes to a system.  Honestly...  MMO companies need to outsource their account management to folks who know what their doing, because the most clinical database manager would do a better job of not sucking the fun out of a game than career game makers.

Murphy, of course, defies attempts at proving his existence:

http://dsc.discovery.com/tv-sh...ttered-side-down.htm

Did some testing with Champions Travel powers to see what worked under water still.  (Sign if it works or not.  If you have the Icon of your travel power under your health bar with the other buffs.  Just tap activating it can highlight the toggle on your powers tray, but not provide the Buff Icon thus travel speed).

Note About Beast Stance:  Beast stance's beastial walking animation overides Super speed/Mach speed, and Acrobatics/Athletics animations.  Which means no Backflips from Acro/Athletics either.

Super Speed/Mach speed: Not actually Buggy.  Works under Water.  I just hadn't realized you need to Full Charge your Travel powers to get them to turn on under water (That and Max ground speed vs sorta buffed swim speed seemed slow at the time).  Don't take Super/Mach Speed unless you really want that power for itself though.

Athletics/Acrobatics:  Stays on,  Full Charge (Hold T until it finishes by itself) activation will turn it on if you are already under.  Just tapping it on will toggle it "on" without it working.

Flying/Fire Flight:  Plain old flying works just fine like Acrobatics.  Fire flight also works, though special note you won't start flying again when you hit the air till your fire effect comes back in 2 seconds.

Hover Disk/Earth flight:  DO work, Full charge can activate under water.  It switches the animation to swimming from your platform, but you are still faster.

Teleport: Works just fine, tap away as usual.

Swinging: Swinging makes you a faster swimmer what?!  It seems that for whatever reason, the jump buff of swinging translates to a swim speed boost.  You can't use the grapple under water though.

SuperJump/Rocket Jump: Makes swimming faster.  Alas, CO super jump is kinda lame compared to City's, and that's before you count the horror that is you have to press spacebar for every single jump.

Ice Slide: Worst. Power. Ever... But it still buffs swim speed and can be activated for swim buff under water.

Jet Boots/Pack:  Can't Turn on Under Water, because you can't charge them.  Remains active if you enter water with them on, but can't turn it on under water.  So bleh.  Poor Kingborg/Scott Scorcher.

Tunneling: I tried it out for completeness sake.  It stays on if you enter water with it on, but while it runs the animation if you are close enough to ground in water, you can't turn it on underwater.  I did however, learn that you can jump while tunneling.  Your invisible "body" jumps over benches and up ledges and stuff.

Wild.  Thanks for the heads-up.

How come? Are the boosted swimspeed powers faster than SS/Mach when under water?

It's more a case of "There is no raptor pack to save you when you need to get over things".  That and CO's Super speed has no stealth/aggro reduction like City.

SS still runs fast (while you are basically Ninja Run+ with CO's Acro/athletics, still a slower travel power than SS), but not as easy to get around with "Oh, hold on I need to find the stairs/ramp".

Just checking.  You and Hushio know that for Champions Double Experience, it's not automatic?  You have to talk to Witchcraft by the power house (they put here there in Millenium City), and it gives you a 4 hour buff.

Guess who didn't remember that himself.
This message was last edited by the GM at 11:20, Sat 26 Jan 2013.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! I meant to tell you that and got distracted!!! >.<

In loving memory of Haymaker, Jawbreaker, and all spectacular moments of Ragdolling street thugs well below your level.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=desb0W6u80Y

Hehe

That was awesome.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpkYXs3_fKY

Missing World Media "Animation Test" video from some bit back.  Watch the two minute video all the way to the end.  Seriously.

Fon!