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Massively Hands-on: Creating superheroes in Champions Online Part 2
The face tab, like the body tab, has more than just sliders. The sliders for your face are easily the most detailed, and do change quite a bit. Not that these sliders are useless, just that if you couldn't be bothered with them you really needn't worry about it beyond picking a mood.
City of Heroes PvP changes explained at length
Floyd 'Castle' Grubb clearly does not know the meaning of fear. He's now unveiled a detailed breakdown of the foreshadowed changes to powers in City of Heroes PvP, and they're so radical it will probably be like playing a different game. Are these changes for the better? Once Issue 13: Power and Responsibility goes to Open Beta, we'll be sure to join in with the testing, because we can't wait to find out.We already knew about the changes to mez protection (removed in PvP) but the changes go far, far beyond that. For example, simply being the target of an attack is enough to suppress your travel power for two seconds, though suppression won't be as severe as it currently is in PvE.Buffs are subject to a 'diminishing returns' system, meaning no more stacking buffs for huge increases to ToHit or damage. Even healing is changed, with each successive heal giving you 25% resistance to healing for 15 seconds, so that 4 heals in close succession would make you immune to healing for the duration. Healspamming will no longer be a viable tactic.
Claws are trimmed on the CoX Training Room
Not so long ago, Martial Arts got a slickening-up in City of Heroes, and now a similar job has been done on the Claws powerset. In the latest patch to go to the Test Server, the animation times for many of the powers have been pared down, resulting in smoother attack chains, and the use of a 'balancing algorithm' has upped the average damage. (There's one power, Focus, that comes out worse off.) Claws will now be notably more efficient in terms of damage done in relation to endurance burned.Plenty of players are applauding these changes, but some strong voices are against them. Katfood, who plays well-known claw-scrapping poster girl Feral Kat, acknowledges the good intentions behind the changes but points out that with a nerfed Focus, the set is now far less competitive in PvP. (PvP in CoX isn't about long drawn-out fights where endurance is a major concern, but more about dealing burst damage quickly.) Other players have raised concerns about the Stalker version of the power, which developer Back Alley Brawler has promised to address.
CoX Issue 11 patch live on Test server
Affecting client version 16.20071113.3T, NCsoft has released a new patch for the CoX properties, and it's currently active on the Test server. The new patch addresses power set activation times, accolades, graphical and sound effects, Flashback missions, and global chat tweaks for all players. As well, two new costume sets were introduced: an Enforcer set and a Jester set. Attendees of last week's Meet & Greet had the opportunity to see the costumes a week ahead of time, when Sexy Jay showcased his work. Aside from the costume sets themselves, two new pattern sets for existing costume customization are also available.For this particular Issue 11 patch, Heroes will see Scrapper, Blaster, and Defender changes, as well as some adjustment done to Badge levels in Flashback missions. Villains will find some improvement to the Mastermind set, and that Snake Eggs will once again hatch. While there's no stated release date for the patch to go live on the regular servers, if you have the opportunity to so do, download and try it out on Test.
Join the Test PVP League: sign up today!
Signups for the Test PVP League started on 10/29/2007, and are still ongoing. The team captains, however, have been picked.A full description of the rules and regulations are available on the City of Heroes official forums, and the official league nights will begin on Tuesday, 01/10/2008, at 10:00 p.m. Eastern Time, and will run for six weeks.So gird your loins and grab your Level 1 Inspirations, folks: you've got teammates to slaughter, and you only have a few more weeks to sign up.This begs two questions: What archetypes and powers do you think works the best? Moreover, why do you visit the PVP zones? Is it for the fun, the influence, the thrill of destroying your enemies, or ... ?Come on, share: give us the scoop on your favorite PVP build.
CoX veteran perks revealed at long last
City of Heroes lead designer, better known as Positron, has lifted the curtain on the new 42 month Veteran reward going live in Issue 11. I know the suspense is killing you, so we'll defer to Positron himself. "We are going with a 'Recall Team' Veteran power, usable once every 30 minutes. We like this as a Vet Reward because it is a nice perk we can give our Veteran players that shouldn't make players who don't have it feel left out. The power can be used only once every 30 minutes, and this can't be reduced by Hasten or other recharge reducing methods. This makes it very handy in certain situations, but obviously not required by any stretch of the imagination."There we have it! We'll find out more about the 45 month reward after Issue 11 goes live (which shouldn't be long, it's already pre-loaded) and we get closer to the actual 45 month mark.
Rumor: More BioShock plasmids ready to unlock
A poster on the 2K forums has stirred up a little Splicer's nest exposing what appears to be new hidden plasmids for BioShock. Showing a bunch of code from the PC version of BioShock -- and we know how reliable that can be -- he points to new plasmids waiting to be unlocked in "PlasmidPack1" at a later date. Four of the plasmids listed are Machine Buster, Vending Expert, Sonic Boom, Eve Saver, along with a bunch of other plasmid content.Joystiq spoke with 2K and they delivered one of those delicious open-ended quotes that beg for wild speculation. 2K says, "Since 2K Games hasn't announced any downloadable content at this time, we have no comment." Where's Ken Levine for us to get a straight answer? Don't make us use the magic words 2K, if we want answers about more plasmids we know exactly the precise words to use! It'd be nice to get more plasmids (for free) as a little bonus down the road, but we'll be happy if those plasmids get saved for BioShock 2 and cut out just that small amount of time in development.[Via X3F]
