Honourable United

[Shingi]

so i've been toying with this idea for a while, and mids last night convinced me to go ahead with it..

in the same style as a working story, please put comments and questions in a seperate thread i'll create right after this one! ta!


this will be a series of posts dedicated to the thought process, learning curve and basic playstyle of my latest toon,
Gozen (click me for the official CO profile!)


i'll start right back at the basics.. the body/face shape sliders.. here's gozen's settings for both!


(face sliders)



(body sliders)

now part of why i've done this is because i like my female toons to look like idealised but real and achievable women.. i was finding on CO that a lot of the basic forms that were achieveable with the silders seemed to create some really.. cartoony.. looks. so i went looking for a way to overcome that, get something a little more what i'm used to.

in regards to her face, i think there's a lot more scope in the woman's faces in terms of what can be achieved than the mens, seems unless i make some "radical" changes to parts of the male face sliders they all seem to look very similar.

here's a pic of geki's sliders, and one of alishia's by comparison





while similar, there's pronounced differences there.. i think a lot of it is to do with the "mouth" settings really.

so, we move on to the body settings..

PHYSICAL LOOKS

biggest thing to note here with gozen is the inclusion of the max body mass slider.. this actually gave her curves on her arms, legs, body and butt!! i've slimmed the limbs and neck down by dropping the thickness of their sliders down. same with the chest depth slider.

finally hands.. man, i dont know why by CO seems to want everyone to have freakishly big hands.. like mutant hands.. so wrong.. not everyone likes the idea of big hands... so i always drop them down some and lose the thickness on them a little, i try to make them more in fitting with the size and shape of the arms..

same with the feet, default feet would make a clown proud.. a few notches above min seem to work and look right to me..

so thats the body.. the outfits/hair/style i'll get into later!

STARTING TO CREATE THE CHARACTER

i was using this as a "clothes horse" to design stuff on for test/live for a while.. made a bad "tifa" rip off...




and from that i got into my mind the idea of trying out a mixed might/martial arts toon, pinching from both and looking for a good blend in terms of how the toon would look while fighting, as well as survivability and effectiveness.

figured i'd go with a str/dex/con stat build, taking lightning reflexes and hoping the damage output from high str and dex would make her into a "glass bomb" as it were, capable of doing devastating damage before being flattened herself..

character wise, she's to be a pure unarmed fighter. no swords, no guns, no laserbeams.. the concept behind it is as follows..

"born from parents who hid in their past, or the 1980's, from a far far distant future, gozen's physical prowess far exceeds the normal human and delves more into the superhuman"


which i'm starting to think may be a flaw.. she currently has NO ranged attacks which is proving to be troublesome.. acrobatics as a travel power helps some, i can buzz in real quick before they notice me too much, but oh for a nice ranged single target attack... XD

POWERS AND BUILD

power wise, i went with the clobber EB from might and the thundering kicks from MA.. grabbed LR as my passive and the block enhancer from might, and while leveling up have taken thunderclap from might and defensive combo and lately empathic healing. which, being a mild departure from the original concept, i'm not overlly happy with having to take, but of all the heals i could see, that was about the only one i could see a "evolved human" having.. its also not that great as a combat self heal XD

stats are as i decided on, at level 18 she has the following stats




PLAYSTYLE

right now, my "glass bomb" idea works partially... she hits HARD alright, i can take out a henchman a level above me in like 3-4 hits.. and villains/master villains are ok on their own or small groups..

however...

LR has some serious problems, when you dodge you dont avoid the attack, instead it reduces the amount of damage you take (sometimes you'll totally dodge but thats rare as hell!). this means you could dodge EVERY SINGLE ATTACK and still take a huge hit of damage.. its troublesome, because its very hard to gain that health back during battle, and you cant block every single incoming attack either.. even with a massive chance to dodge and high avoidance i'll dodge a hit and take 60% of the damage from it still.. without a super-statted con build its very tricky to soak up that level of impact, and she doesnt dodge all the time.. and i can lose half my hp in the first 2-3 seconds of a fight easy..

i've countered this in a couple of ways

first is the advantage that adds a stack of defiant thats on defensive combo, even now its only one stack, its still a damage reduction, and every single point of health i can save is essential XD

next is the floating lotus blossom advantage on the kick, which gives you stacks of a dodge buff, 5% each one, i've had about 3 in action at once i think.. increased dodge lowers the incoming damage when you dodge, and again, every hp counts!

i've also found that thunderclap has a stun effect on henchmen, very useful in helping get rid of them while you take on a villain or master villain.. also does some ok damage on its own too!

empathic healing i took because frankly i *needed* a self heal, by my own guidelines i put down in my defense stratagies, i was taking too much damage and scraping by on luck too often, so needed a self heal badly.. this was the closest i could get without completely breaking concept so i took it.. its a charged heal, heals yourself while no-one else is targeted.. its at rank 1 right now and i think it will need some ranking up, because its not combat-effective right now!

my basic stratagy is as follows when it comes to combat..

find group
pick something up, heaver the better
find henchie in target group
run in, throwing the object as i go
hit thunderclap as i enter group to stun any henchies left standing
target someone with my EB and build a little end
hit defensive combo 3 times to gain defiance buff
smack the hell outta them with the kick to keep up the dodge buffs

block when needed, heal if possible

rinse and repeat.

against 90% of people this is effective, its all about taking down the amount of damage incoming at one time..

poe however kicked my ass. badly. i have video footage of it too!

at present i'm re-thinking my stratagy, might bump in some cash from other toons to retcon out LR and take defiance instead.. see if i fair better with that!


stay tuned for pic updates and also for further developments!

comments in next thread please!
_________________
***SHINGI - BRINGING YOU STABBITY GOODNESS SINCE MAY 2004***
purveyer for stabbity to the Queen


You might be a scrapper if Leeroy Jenkins is your idol
Also Known As:- Awai, Gekido, Ada, h4ck, H4XX, Elzibeth and Sparkles the clown (you know you want to hug him)

[Shingi]

so...

LR bites the dust for me.. i gave it a good shot, 19 levels.. but when i cant cross a simple AREA of ten foot in-game in order to get to a mission thats the final straw..

dying 4 times in as many minutes really wasnt that much fun as it wasnt really my fault :p its ok when i do it, but when i'm just trying to move about in snake gulch and EVERYTHING there, at a level below, even or one above can take me out before i can get out of range is a little much :s

so i've swapped to defiance.. it still fits with the theme and frankly, may even work better in terms of theme.. and given the 18 levels i did on robotina with it, i feel its more survivable right now.

a lot of the playerbase is agreeing that regen is where defensives should be.. and they need to bring the others up to be on par with that. right now regen is possibly the only viable solo solution and thats not right really :s

in my humble opinion, LR needs some basic, easy to make changes

make dodging with LR an actual "dodge" with no damage taken and keep the frequency of it, or maybe drop it a little bit

- or -

increase the effectiveness of a dodge, because i'm "dodging" attacks that are hitting me for maybe 10% less damage than if i didnt "dodge", which isnt right

my dex was up as high as it would go and be effective and not overkill and dodging just meant i was being smooshed by everything.. i was dodging plenty, a hell of a lot, roughly 1 in 3 attacks was dodged according to my combat log.. but when those dodges were taking 10 damage off a 120 damage hit, it may as well have not been there.


so

with the change in defence, a change in statistical focus was also needed, as defiance scales on con, i swapped from dex to con as the focus, thankfully to get rid of LR i also had to get rid of most of my talents and my second characteristic focus. so was able to re-do these as well!

i've also swapped out the heal, double checking it i found it scaled on presence, a stat i never use as it makes me an aggro magnet in the protector role ^_^ so i swapped in resurgance as it was the only heal based on a stat i was already buffing..


- again, from a pure character perspective, i'd like to not have to have a self heal at all, but the sheer gameplay mechanics means unless i take regen, i need one... so we have to sit in a level of compromise, and from a story perspective i need to "retcon" her character a bit.

it *is* a shame, i'd like for her to be able to survive, not dominate as such, but get by, without having to bump in a heal mid combat.. but i really cant do that and keep her playable unless i put up with PuG's all the time, and frankly i'd rather flush my head in grond's toilet than do that... >_>


so, the testing shall commence, and we shall see if defiance can do better where lightning reflexes failed..

and yes, if they DO buff LR in the future to the point were its playable again, i'll swap back in a heartbeat.. till then, as much as i REALLY WANT to use it, it simply doesnt work in my playstyle right now..
_________________
***SHINGI - BRINGING YOU STABBITY GOODNESS SINCE MAY 2004***
purveyer for stabbity to the Queen


You might be a scrapper if Leeroy Jenkins is your idol
Also Known As:- Awai, Gekido, Ada, h4ck, H4XX, Elzibeth and Sparkles the clown (you know you want to hug him)

[Shingi]

well..

finished the snake gulch missions with defiance as my passive no problems, not as "easy" as a regen but its just a different playstyle really..

so lets talk about that quickly.

PLAYSTYLE UPDATED

Right now the playstyle is fairly similar, but i'm more willing to take a few risks now i'm taking less damage. my "sequence" has changed also.

i was bashing defensive combo a lot, to put that single stack of defiance on myself, now i find i'm hitting the kick more for the dodge stacks from floating lotus blossom.

defiance is ranked to 3 already, and the change to con is also helping, like i say, a good sized HP pool is always a good thing for soaking up incoming damage, and the change of heal to resurgance has made quite a difference too, its nice to have a "fire and forget" heal for me, and my playstyle, so i can focus on positioning and priority of targets to attack


I dinged 20 clearing out the weaponsmiths in the desert, so i came back to MC to deal with poe.. who handed me my rear on a plate while laughing to himself at 18 and still LR/emp heal.

this time however, it was a little different...

still wasnt an easy fight.. the guy has some serious power with that PFF soaking up probably around 1,000 damage before dropping and reaplying almost instantly coupled with his un-shticked hold plus his normal shtick attacks as well.. but common sense, some tactical moves and a fore-knowledge of his un-shticked attack's "tells" (ya know, the moves he makes before doing something, the poses etc) allowed me to walk out in one piece without defeat this time.

i'll post up stats now, as they are at level 20



about to tackle medusa and the psi-crew.. hopefully i'll get through this too!

oh! one other thing..

Gozen is a concept character, and as such has "no superpowers"

as part of this concept, she's got three outfits, one for each of the zones.

i may adapt and alter these some in the future, but i'll also post up pics of each of these now too!

(desert outfit - armour and cover for radiation protection to a degree)



(MC outfit, and the one from the start - casual, sexy, a teen girl basically, could use a mid-thigh level skirt though, as her butt clips through the teeny one when she runs!)



(canada outfit - its cold in them thar hills.. same colours though, working a theme here!)

[Shingi]

so...

lack of updates over the weekend caused by a lack of playtime, in turn caused by severe headaches i've been putting down to a clown called clive eating my tasty brainmeats as i sleep.... (the rumour goes that its actually mids, but he's yet to confirm or deny this 100%, he just says "om nom nom nom nom" whenever its brought up...)

tonight i've taken gozen to 24.. and man, its been a fight to do so.

my usual method of doing the renegade run stuff then hit up project awakening backed up with the gadroon stuff in canada before hitting stronghold has hit a snag.. in that the gadroon hit like freaking trucks even while blocking! once again i raise my fists to the sky and proclaim (aping kirk in wrath of khan) "GAADROOOOOOOOOON!!!!"

so, according to the crime computer 2.0 that i've found recently i didnt have too many missions i could pick up that i'd not already done.. and i was level 23 facing off against level 25 gadroon's and out of the 8 or so missions for them i'd got to the point where all i had to do was the escort mission (its EVIL I TELLZ YA!) with dr aggro-everything-and-pull-hate and fighting the invasion leader, which is a tough enough battle without the "handicaps" i'd noticed i've got..

see, there's a few bugs at the moment that are really hurting gozen bad, the first one is defiance not stacking to 8, but only to 6 which removes 25% of the potential buff, meaning no matter how hard i get slammed i should be getting 25% less slammed.. it hurts, and might explain why i'm still feeling very squishy out there.

i've also been seeing this one way too much too the old "you've killed everything in the zone but you're still in combat" bug.. even when there's no objects around to screw it up (story goes, and i've checked this out and its right 90% of the time, that if you damage an object while in battle sometimes the object still has "aggro" on you so you're in battle until its destroyed.. ) i'm still sat flashing red with nothing around, i have to leave the area, literally to the point where the area name changes, before i begin to regen health.. and its not just gozen with this problem, Ali has it too, but she's got regen as a passive so i've never noticed it on her before.

so no health regen, 25% less damage resist.. all makes shingi a saaad panda


so i headed for stronghold.. figured prisoners and guards and all that jazz gotta be an easier gig than those frog-faced bastards right?

boy howdy

the last 2 bars of 23 flew by, just eased through them like it was nothing.

picked up a couple new powers too, well a power and advantage, and they've altered my playstyle some.. so here we go!

PLAYSTYLE UPDATE!

right now my tactics are simple. stun, hurt, remove. i run in, nice and fast with acrobatics up, and gather the buggers up into a nice little group. then its thunderclap to stun the henchies, followed up by a kick who's name i really cant remember right now.. but its a chargable one and it stuns villains, hits henchies for like 500 too, so if all my victims are in the right type of row/grouping it'll stun them all good and allow me to charge havoc stomp up, adding another 200-300 damage. anything left alive gets the same again, or is cleared up with thundering kicks/defensive combo/whatever i feel like XD

picked up the advantage on the retaliation block, which kinda helps give it the name.. its a counter attack, HUGE KB and ok damage too. fires once every 10 seconds and is an AoE i believe.. not had it long, picked that up at 24 so only a couple of bars of testing done.

gozen now lives or dies based on how quickly she can stop herself from being hit.. it kinda makes sense concept wise.. she's not super-powered as such, just more evolved.

so for you numbers folks out there, here's her stats at 24.



you'll notice i updated her bio at last.. 100 bonus points* to anyone who gets the referance regarding her story ^_^

the sharp eyed will also notice the drop in str, rise in rec and end.. basically she's using charged attacks now and she didnt have enough endurance in her total pool to get them up to full charges, so that had to change.. and a decent recovery stat helps keep her equilibrium high so she can hit more as an alpha strike if she hast to. thanks to defiance's "energised" buff she's never really that low on energy for long.

i want to get her str back up though, she hits harder and can pick things up quickly in battle, which is still her only ranged attack XD i actually ended up taking out medusa mostly with the sofa's in her office... its an unusual playstyle for a MMO, you normally only have what you take in with you, not whats there to be picked up and smacked over the head of someone else..

i'm considering pausing gozen while this defiance/still combat bug combo is about, its seriously deadly for her and that just leads to frustration too often.. any comments? ideas? feedback? please put it in the comments thread! its sat there all lonely and unloved





* bonus points are not redeemable in your local shops, your national shops, nor anywhere really, they dont exist and have no cash value.. go reward yourself with a cookie if you get it ^_^
_________________
***SHINGI - BRINGING YOU STABBITY GOODNESS SINCE MAY 2004***
purveyer for stabbity to the Queen


You might be a scrapper if Leeroy Jenkins is your idol
Also Known As:- Awai, Gekido, Ada, h4ck, H4XX, Elzibeth and Sparkles the clown (you know you want to hug him)

[Shingi]

well todays play session was cut short do to headaches, clive's back it seems..

i did however manage to hit 25, and make a nemesis for Gozen..


say hello to Longevious, the Eternal Man

vid is an edit of a 25 minute 7 gig raw file >_> i'm sure you guys will appreciate the edit

i'll upload some pics of the nemesis creation screen with his story soon and get those posted here too, but for now, bed.

i'd appreciate some feedback too dunno if anyone's reading this or anything, but feedback on here from people who can, or in-game *if* people are linking in from the offical forums.. would be nice to know if people are interested in this, or if its worth me carrying it on.

play nice folks
_________________
***SHINGI - BRINGING YOU STABBITY GOODNESS SINCE MAY 2004***
purveyer for stabbity to the Queen


You might be a scrapper if Leeroy Jenkins is your idol
Also Known As:- Awai, Gekido, Ada, h4ck, H4XX, Elzibeth and Sparkles the clown (you know you want to hug him)

[Shingi]

well didnt get much done again last night..

clive appears to be making day-calls now

i was also hit with some serious frame rate issues last night, i attempted stronghold and at <10 fps resting it wasnt really going to happen..

so into the options i go and i find one i should have been able to tick but couldnt.. which might have solved the issue..

so i posted on the main forums and asked for some advice and boy did i have egg on my face..

seems when i rolled back my drivers to install to try and get SL running without constant issues because "they didnt support the radeon HD3750 card" i forgot to roll them forward again..

i believe the term is "ROFFLEPWNED" >_>

anyway, it was late by this point so i didnt really move Gozen on, did get the snowthrush stuff done in canada though, up to the mechassasin mission.

couple of bars from 26, should be there soon ^_^[/url]
_________________
***SHINGI - BRINGING YOU STABBITY GOODNESS SINCE MAY 2004***
purveyer for stabbity to the Queen


You might be a scrapper if Leeroy Jenkins is your idol
Also Known As:- Awai, Gekido, Ada, h4ck, H4XX, Elzibeth and Sparkles the clown (you know you want to hug him)

[Shingi]

well its been a few days since i updated here..

had some more "fun" with the UI and like.. fixed my low fps rate at the cost of about 50% of the sounds in-game.. XD i've /bug'd it already so just waiting to hear back about it.

in terms of Gozen and how she's doing.. well..

she's level 29 now, just, and the latest power choice has left me pondering.. i've taken enrage for it for the damage buff it'll give, especially as it scales with str which i've been boosting anyway, but the powers now available give me pause.

from the MA unarmed set there's like literally one power i've not taken, crashing wave kick, because the animation doesnt suit her, it doesnt "flow" right with how she looks in combat.

from might i've thought about shockwave but again, the animations dont look right, from a curvy girl at least. damn nice power, but bashing the ground hulk-style just doesnt suit her.

pretty much the rest of the might powers, all punches, are charged attacks. i already have three of those and really wanted another "click" style.

oh powers! yes, the ones i have are as follows, i'll also say why i've gone for them.

Clobber - energy builder (might) taken over the MA one because in concept terms it suits her more. she's more about power than style and the highly stylised MA energy builder, while awsome looking, didnt feel right.

Thundering Kicks - single target click (MA) just an awsome power, especially with the floating lotus blossom advantage! its now at rank 2 with that advantage in it as well, and doing very nice damage.

Burning Chi Fist - single target charged (MA) a very cool looking single target attack, and the most damaging single attack i have when fully charged. it also has the advantage on it that adds more damage to other melee attacks (fists of righteous fury) that teams up very nicely with thundering kicks

Defensive combo - single target click (Might) a decent enough attack, not used too much now but needs some more advantage loving, i'm thinking AM here. has the advantage that adds a defiant buff to it.

Dragon Kick - cone AoE charged (MA) adds a stun effect when fully charged, has a cooldown on it too. will stun up to villain levels. a very useful tool, and looks awsome as well XD

thunderclap - close area AoE click (might) damage is a bit meh, but stuns henchies, meaning damage mitigation! might advantage this up some later on

Havoc Stomp - Close area AoE charged (might) interesting power, has two animations, a single foot stomp very CoX style when tapped, which turns into a full on jump when charged. good damage when charged too and has KB on it, so given that i'm a close up only fighter on Gozen this tends to be a "finishing move"

Resergance - self heal click (supernatural) my only dip outside the might/ma frames for now, essential for her however, as its the only click and forget self heal i can find that scales with her stats.

Defiance - defensive passive (might) increases damage resistance each time you take damage, stacks up to 6 currently for me *meant to be 8, have /bug'd this and commented on the forum post for it too!* its pretty good, and getting better now the benefits from super-statting CON are coming through, as it scales off it.

Enrage - damage buff click (might) turns stacks of defiance into enrage buffs, amount of damage increase is scaled from STR, which i've also SS'd so hopefully this will prove useful (is my latest power and not extensively tested it in the field yet!)

Retaliation - block enhancer (might) i tried the advantage on this, but massive amounts of KB while i was blocking wasnt beneficial to my playstyle, given that i have no ranged attacks at all! i retconned it out a level or two back and ranked this up to three, and have not looked back!


acrobatic - travel power - rank 2 at the moment, i dont know what i'm going to take at 35 for a second one.. maybe swinging? it doesnt go well with acrobatics however XD

i'd take a pic of the stats, but it seems that trying to use fraps crashes my PC since the GPU driver update.. same with saving costumes! will work on getting this fixed asap!

in the meantime, here's a pic of Gozen turning down Foxbat after he tried to ask her out in the stronghold mission.. she was somewhat shy about it all..



so, i'm pushing for 30, and the next costume slot, if i go further yet i dont know, 30's kind of the cut-off point for most of my toons still XD

questions still appreciated, post them where they get posted if you have any!
_________________
***SHINGI - BRINGING YOU STABBITY GOODNESS SINCE MAY 2004***
purveyer for stabbity to the Queen


You might be a scrapper if Leeroy Jenkins is your idol
Also Known As:- Awai, Gekido, Ada, h4ck, H4XX, Elzibeth and Sparkles the clown (you know you want to hug him)

[Shingi]

So today i actually got Gozen to 30..

following up on something mids said, i decided to give her a "superhero" disguise for her level 30 costume slot..



this is very likely to be massively altered over the coming weeks.. i'm not sure i like it yet..

i've also decided to pause Gozen here for a bit, put some focus back on alishia and maybe actually get to level 40 with her, i know she's got some missions in lemuria she could hit up.

in the mean time as well, i'll be working on Awai, the namesake of one of my toons from CoH.

been tinkering with her since i made her, and this is her second full retcon XD just cant settle on something with her that feels right.. well, maybe now.

she's been given a full makeover as well, in the style of Gozen, with a model i've been messing with for a few weeks. built up from scratch not altered from an existing one.

awai used to look like this




but the face never seemed "right" to me.. and the body is a little out of proportion too.

she's now looking like this, i've copied/adapted her armour and outfit designs too.




so this is the end for a little while for Gozen's development diary. now's the best time to ask any questions about anything i may have learned from doing both the diary and a pure melee toon to 30, without regen.

if a diary for awai is wanted, please say so too ^_^
_________________
***SHINGI - BRINGING YOU STABBITY GOODNESS SINCE MAY 2004***
purveyer for stabbity to the Queen


You might be a scrapper if Leeroy Jenkins is your idol
Also Known As:- Awai, Gekido, Ada, h4ck, H4XX, Elzibeth and Sparkles the clown (you know you want to hug him)