And the mask comes off.

[Lupur]

EEEEEWWWWWWwwww.w...!!

See, that's the sort of rubbish that I absolutely abhor in games.

That's the sort of thing that immediately concerned me when incarnates and the new raid system were announced. However, I was quietly confident that the good folks around me wouldn't be reduced to that, and I was mostly correct.

Considering that pre-Hamidon and pre-MoShip prep involved the Raid Leaders having a string of macros that briefly but accurately described each step / persons role, as well as a Q&A period and links to the relevant articles, it was a good chance the the Justice plebs ( me included ) were already trained to sit and listen before cutting loose.

I was actually pretty happy to notice that this is pretty much exactly what happened. Obviously, after the first couple of weeks this was all replaced by 'Have we all done this before?' and then the macros and stuff only happened if someone said no.

Honestly though, the number of times I died to Marauder on my EM// brute during Total Focus // Energy Transfer for not noticing Nova Fist, or the number of timed I'd accidentally grab aggro off both of them during a BAF on my Dark//Dark Tank from getting too close or the taunt aoe hitting both for an insta-time out would have gotten me veeerryy blacklisted, probably just outright banned >.<

Generally, the whole " 'OK, so we all know what we have to do?' *nods all around* 'OK, cool. Lets go!' *all proceed to zerg 'cause its funny* " approach worked well for us.

Then again, I never was part of the thuper theriouth thraiding thcrowd. I.. honestly don't think I know anyone on Justice who was..

[darkgob]

Funny, the only time I ever really saw people get blacklisted on Pinnacle was when they made a habit of joining raids then not doing anything.

[Twisted Toon]

I didn't mind ED hitting at all.

My first character was a Dark/Dark Defender (the original iteration of "The Sundown Man"), and in the blast set, I was typically running something like this:

TO: 2 Accuracy, 1 End Reduction, 3 Damage
DO and SO: 1 Accuracy, 1 End Reduction, 4 Damage

And I swear, I lost track of how many times I was told I was 'doing it wrong'. Yeah... because I hadn't super-optimized my build by doing the same exact cookie-cutter plan that other people did, how dare I have fun? No, no one actually said the last bit, but a few pick-up groups I was in seemed to be full of full-of-themself-asshats who took great offense at the fact that we didn't mow through a group of bad guys that second or two quicker than we would have if I had "optimized". Of course, I was the sole healer in the group, and when I threatened to leave, they shut up really quickly.

Needless to say, I loved ED and IOs.

I was so far away from the min/max optimal builds for most of my characters it wasn't funny. I mean, I had Stamina on maybe 5 of the hundred or so characters I had. Up until they made the fitness pool inherent. I put End Redux enhancements in my powers to help offset the lack of Stamina. Even after Stamina was inherent, I rarely actually added any slots to it.

I rarely slotted more than 4 of the same enhancement in a power. So, ED didn't really bother me, and I understood the need for balance between the ATs. I also didn't envy the Devs attempting to provide that balance. Especially since there were 14 ATs that all functioned in vastly different ways. I'm sure that Arcana could come up with some mathematical thingamabob that would illustrate the compounded difficulty each additional AT added in terms of balancing them among each other.

[ukaserex]

We even saw this kind of behavior, slightly, in the incarnate trials, some players would try to keep others out of leagues based on how high their level shift was.  Even in incarnate trials that certainly didn't need everyone to be +3 including the BAF and LAMBDA trials.  It did't get wide spread, thank god, but if it did, CoH would have really been doomed for it, because it creates the destructive catch 22 of "can't get +3 because everyone wants me to have +3 to do the things that need to be done to get +3 in the first place".

On the one hand, this drove me nuts. I can certainly understand some frustration stemming from such an incident.

 On the other hand, with regards to Magisterium, it was a gated trial. A lot of players would get mad at me for telling them they needed to be +3 to join. I'd try to explain, and they just didn't get it. But, that was for the best. If they couldn't understand my words before the trial, then they'd likely not follow the instructions during the trial.

For MoiTrial efforts, particularly UGT, I did indeed notice a stark contrast between leagues that had far more +3's and +2's than those leagues with +0's and +1's.  Much of what makes up a successful league is about the players on an individual basis - what they see, how they react to that, the time it takes them to react, the number of kittens available to walk on their keyboard, but overall, team composition was far more important in a lower level league. The lower the overall league average, the more critical buffs and debuffs were. As league leader on my weekly MoUGT runs, I recognized that some players could only play during that one hour window that week. That's it. I only saw those players during that 1 hour. Failure was not an option. No success, no component at the end. All they got were my bad puns for the week. So, yes, some of the iTrials, I'd try to encourage folks to bring their A-game, making note of who was willing to do swap out, and who was not. I can't recall ever turning away anyone if they weren't +3, except for gated trials. But, if it was a badge effort, and I had a choice between a +3 scrapper and a +0 scrapper, I went with the +3.

[Thunder Glove]

You didn't actually need to be +3 for Magi, you just needed to have Lore and Destiny unlocked.  (And just unlocked; you didn't even need to have them slotted)

Of course, Magi aws a fairly brutal Boss Rush, so having +3 did make it all the easier (but, then again, what didn't being +3 make easier?)

[Taceus Jiwede]

We even saw this kind of behavior, slightly, in the incarnate trials, some players would try to keep others out of leagues based on how high their level shift was.  Even in incarnate trials that certainly didn't need everyone to be +3 including the BAF and LAMBDA trials.  It did't get wide spread, thank god, but if it did, CoH would have really been doomed for it, because it creates the destructive catch 22 of "can't get +3 because everyone wants me to have +3 to do the things that need to be done to get +3 in the first place".

Even while some people did have this attitude there was still a lot of people willing to teach players who hadn't done it before.  And you weren't intended to jump straight into Mag trail.  It was intended you do BAF/Lambda and the others before it.  I admit to not inviting people who weren't +3 at times.  It wasn't every time, I also often just took who ever wanted to go.  It depended on what I was doing.  If I am going for a Mo run I would discriminate on who I would bring along, if I was short on time and looking for fast runs I would also discriminate to people I know who could do it fast and clean.  But there were also times I would bring whoever and would often happily bring in players that hadn't done it before and help in anyways I can.  Using slightly stricter selection choices in grouping isn't always a bad thing, sometimes you need people you can be sure are right for the role you are looking to fill.  I didn't see it happen in CoH often enough to be a problem though.  It was usually limited to badge runs which in all honesty do require a slightly more "hand picked" team.

It also depended greatly on how patient you were feeling.  I would bring players who had never done Master runs along if I wasn't in a rush or feeling impatient, but everyone has those days where you just don't feel like showing people what to do.

[brothermutant]

My SG was usually pretty good about helping others in the SG (even occasionally auditioning new guys into our stuff if we wanted an 8th for TFs) but when the incarnate stuff came out, it was hard getting all your alts through them to get +3 on everything so a lot of us got left along the way. They still went out of their way to make it a SG run and would even schedule days where one or two of us were underpowered (+1 to +2) so long as we all knew what to do. That's the joy of being part of a decent SG I guess.

I really felt for those soloin slobs out there; thank gawd they added the chance to buy with inf your alpha slot. Does anyone know if it was possible to solo grind out the other slots? Would be good to know before the game comes back (hopefully).

[Relitner]

My SG was usually pretty good about helping others in the SG (even occasionally auditioning new guys into our stuff if we wanted an 8th for TFs) but when the incarnate stuff came out, it was hard getting all your alts through them to get +3 on everything so a lot of us got left along the way. They still went out of their way to make it a SG run and would even schedule days where one or two of us were underpowered (+1 to +2) so long as we all knew what to do. That's the joy of being part of a decent SG I guess.

I really felt for those soloin slobs out there; thank gawd they added the chance to buy with inf your alpha slot. Does anyone know if it was possible to solo grind out the other slots? Would be good to know before the game comes back (hopefully).

I was definitely one of those poor slobs. Unfortunately, any SG (on Victory) I joined seemed to fall apart after just a few weeks, and many of the established ones were not very "casual-friendly". The only two characters with whom I had any success in the incarnate content were a fire/fire tank and a warshade. Which is funny, because I was very much a blaster junky.

[Jachim]

I was definitely one of those poor slobs. Unfortunately, any SG (on Victory) I joined seemed to fall apart after just a few weeks, and many of the established ones were not very "casual-friendly". The only two characters with whom I had any success in the incarnate content were a fire/fire tank and a warshade. Which is funny, because I was very much a blaster junky.

League of Valor was a great SG with good participation! Shoulda checked them out.

[KennonGL]

For me, City of Heroes was the superheroine life I can't have in real life because if I try to jump a cliff tonight and fly like Jenn Space ...that probably will be my last message on this board! XDDDD

Heh, yeah. 

I can't tell you how many times I just stepped off the edge of a skyscraper and then kicked on Flight
moments before hitting the ground.  And every time, in my head (usually), there was a big Technicolor
ZOOOOM!!!!!!

[Remaugen]

Heh, yeah. 

I can't tell you how many times I just stepped off the edge of a skyscraper and then kicked on Flight
moments before hitting the ground.  And every time, in my head (usually), there was a big Technicolor
ZOOOOM!!!!!!

That's funny, mostly cause I often did the same thing! 

There were times when I wished for cartoony (60's Batman TV Show style) splash FX, "Pow!" or "Bam!" on the knockout punch.

[pinballdave]

That's funny, mostly cause I often did the same thing! 

There were times when I wished for cartoony (60's Batman TV Show style) splash FX, "Pow!" or "Bam!" on the knockout punch.

and of course FREEM!

[JennSpace]

and of course FREEM!

Not to mention BIFF!  XDDD

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EC8DmmeWcZU

[robo40]

Im still flabbergasted that with the IO system wherein you can easily shore up weaknesses and become extremely overpowered AND the Incarnate abililties..

people are still talking about ED like it just happened.. just mindblowing to me..

You do know we have nothing better to do while waiting for the game to re-release? 

Seriously, for most of us who played from the start, ED was the low point.  Not because of ED, but because it looked like the devs were incapable of maintaining the franchise.  From IO's onward the game kept getting better, but people who didn't play in the beginning don't appreciate how much harder we had to work for everything, and how much more user friendly the game got.

[Rampage]

and of course FREEM!

That was a planned feature, circa 2008.  Plan for I25

http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/April_Fools'_Day

[Thunder Glove]

I was hoping the Vanity Pet would actually come out. (Instead, the Liger did)

[Twisted Toon]

I really felt for those soloin slobs out there; thank gawd they added the chance to buy with inf your alpha slot. Does anyone know if it was possible to solo grind out the other slots? Would be good to know before the game comes back (hopefully).

It was possible to solo and advance in the incarnate slots. Well, to a point. They hadn't implemented the Hybrid path for solo-ers before the shut-down notice. New Dark Astoria and the MOT story line was the Solo-ers area for Incarnating. I spent a lot of my time there with my Incarnates once it was available.

[MWRuger]

I would add that people need to be aware of what they bring, both for good and ill, to an incarnate trial. Whenever I was invited, I would inform the leader how comfortable I was with the content and such like. I always appreciated a team that would take on someone who hadn't done a trial but I also understood when they didn't feel like it.

I almost never did a MoTrial. I didn't want to be responsible for causing someone to fail. There were only a few TF's I would consider doing that for. Really, ITF was the only one I would even consider. The only one I know I had was Master of Apex. The team leader said: "Relax, you can't fail this unless you just don't know how to play at all". He was right, we actually did it pretty darn quick and did it right.

[blacksly]

You do know we have nothing better to do while waiting for the game to re-release? 

Seriously, for most of us who played from the start, ED was the low point.  Not because of ED, but because it looked like the devs were incapable of maintaining the franchise.  From IO's onward the game kept getting better, but people who didn't play in the beginning don't appreciate how much harder we had to work for everything, and how much more user friendly the game got.

Man, I remember those days! We had to Teleport uphill both from the contact to the mission door, and then back from the mission door to the contact. And they wouldn't even let you have their phone number until you completed their Mow My Lawn mission, and even then cell service was poor so we had to maneuver between Steel Canyon's superscrapers to be able to call in the mission complete. And, of course, no superhero's career was complete without being run over by the Tsoo-tsoo Train at level 20. Superheroes these days don't know how easy they have it.

[Felderburg]

I did know about the way Jack handled it though and noticed the game changed in a more positive direction (for me) after he left.   He was horrible at communicating with the players and I never cared for his attitude of "a right way to play the game" based upon some story he told about being on an airplane or something.

Well now I want to know about the airplane story.


I started playing shortly after I5, and didn't really get involved on forums until a little bit later, so ED didn't hit me at all, really. I didn't have a character above level 20 until well after CoV, so it was well past by the time I could even get SOs.