LEGION DEL FENIX SG

LEVEL PROGRESSION

2011-02-22T19:35:00.002+01:00

Aqui os pongo la nueva progesion de niveles del Champions online se incluye la progresion de los nuevos arquetipos.

imagen extraida de los foros de Championsonline.com

DEMONFLAME ADVENTURE PACK PARCHE

2010-10-20T16:01:00.001+02:00

Demonflame Adventure Pack

Our Second Adventure Pack is available for all players, level 11-40, to play and enjoy.
In this adventure you will need to travel to a realm unlike any other you have seen and face the Horrors that reside in the Qliphothic. Witchcraft will need your help to save the world and everyone in it from Luther Black and his demented plan.
To begin your journey you will need to go inside the UNTIL HQ found in Downtown Millennium City. Once inside seek out major Violette Boudreau. She will get you started.
Gather your fellow Heroes together and find out what Luther Black has planned.
There are many rewards that you can earn during your adventure. Some are available on the UNTIL Requisitions Officer while others are only available in the Qliphothic.
While playing The Demonflame Adventure Pack you can earn UNTIL tokens that you can use at the UNTIL Store to Purchase:

10 new Qliphothic themed costume pieces
4 new Devices
3 new Action Figures

While you adventure in the Qliphothic realm you will be fighting the Horrors Critter Group. There are 3 Perks with 2 costume unlocks for this group. In addition to the standard drops, the Horrors can also drop Crafted Travel Power Components.
For an overview of the Demonflame Adventure pack head on over to the Web page: http://www.champions-online.com/demonflame

Pet Update

General

The Pet Pass is here! Many pet revisions are going on in this patch, which includes changes that were pushed to the previous PTS build as well as all of the revisions and additions that went into the most recent PTS push. In general, some big changes to Controllable Pets have occurred.
- Pets now have a cost associated with having them active. Each pet causes a decrease to your energy generation and recovery, and increases the energy cost of your powers. This cost is scaled appropriately for 1 pet summons (like Arctic Beast or Tyrannon's Familiar) and for 2 pet summons (like Munitions Bots and Support Drones).
- All controllable pets now have multiple costume options. These can be accessed from the Powers window, similar to emit points (hand, head, chest, etc.) for certain powers. Many pets gain access to additional costumes as they are ranked up.
- All of the non-ritual pets have an activated power, found on their pet control bar. In some cases, these are updated versions of existing functionality, such as Turrets for Munitions Bots, or Frenzy for Command Animals. In others, pets have gained access to new powers. Sorcery Ritual pets do not have these activated powers, and are compensated with increased damage/functionality over other pets.
- Pet summons are (once again) no longer interrupted by damage.
- Pet defenses have been revised. All pets now have a base damage resistance that increases with each rank. At Rank 1, it is ~17%, Rank 2 is ~20%, and Rank 3 is ~24%.The base health of pets has been reduced, but health gain per rank is more substantial, as is health gained from player stats.
- The energy cost to summon a controllable pet has been reworked. They now cost a base of 35 Energy OR no more than your Equilibrium, whichever is lower, instead of always costing your Equilibrium. This will give players that want to be able to summon multiple pets in combat a way to do so, while also ensuring players who just want to be able to have a pet up all of the time will be able to do so, regardless of build/role. This cost change coincides with the additional costs of having a pet out.
- All pets now scale with the chosen Characteristic Focus/Super Stats, instead of Presence and Intelligence. The way the scaling works has not changed, except for both damage and health being based on the summed values of your 2 Super Stats, instead of just Presence for health and Intelligence for damage.
Removed the 2 second recharge time from all pets.
Update to pet teleport functionality
Default Keybinds have been added for all of the Group Pet Control Bar buttons.
Updated spawn FX of several pets to match the pet better.
Fixed a bug with Pet AI power usage timing. This will result in a substantial DPS increase for most pets.
Pets can now be sent to attack foes that are up to 120 feet away from you, instead of only up to 100 feet away.
Pets and Circles that you no longer own will now despawn.
All controllable pets should now teleport near their owner if they get more than 200 feet away.
All non-temporary pets should now persist with you through map moves.
Previously, the innate passive that pets have that sets their stats based on yours (Max HP, Damage Strength, and Healing Strength) was updating once every 16 seconds, which made it hard to realize your stats were having an effect on them unless you waited around long enough to see the change. They will now update every 3 seconds.
Pets should no longer survive after the summoning player dies
Pets will no longer automatically attack anything you target while they are in attack mode
Clicking attack will cause your pets to start attacking whatever you have targeted even if they are currently attacking a different target.
The pet list will now show a disabled button instead of a partially transparent button when the pet does not have a special power.
Pets should now correctly face their targets when attacking
Pets should no longer turn off flight in midair and fall to the ground
Pets will no longer sometimes persist after re-spawning.

Gadgeteering

Munitions Bots, Support Drones, and Attack Toys all lock you in place while you are summoning them, like all of the other controllable pet powers.
Munitions Bots: In turret mode, these will now face their target while firing.
Munitions Bots: No longer has lower resistance in Turret Mode.
Munitions Bots: Added a short recharge to the toggle power, so you don't accidentally toggle back and forth.
Munitions Bots: No longer gain Frag Grenade at R2. Instead, they gain a version of Micro Munitions.
Munitions Bots: Will now transform out of turret mode before teleporting to a player.
Support Drones: Got a new activated power, Weapons Platform Mode. This is a toggle, similar to the Munitions Bot toggle. In Weapons Platform Mode, Support Drones no longer heal, and instead become a light attack pet. As ranked up, they gain access to a repel power and a resistance debuff power.
Support Drones: Should now heal targets up to full health, instead of stopping/not starting at 90%.
Support Drones: Added a short recharge to the toggle power, so you don't accidentally toggle back and forth.
Support Drones: The FX for the heal have been updated to be more indicative of what they are hitting. At Rank 1, it is now a single target beam. At Rank 2, it looks like the old FX that indicate a Cylinder effect. At Rank 3, it has a beam with a pulse around the target for the AoE.
Attack Toys: No longer require you to activate Playtime, they now activate it automatically. They can now only proc playtime off of melee attacks (can't proc from Rocket Launcher or the new attack). They also have a new activated power, Fragmentation Grenade. Deals damage and does Knock Back, 30 second recharge.
Attack Toys: Activate time of Rocket Launcher reduced from 0.83 to 0.67.
Attack Toys: The Toys were not ranking up the damage of their melee attacks at Ranks 2 and 3. They do now.
Attack Toys: Damage type for Rocket Launcher changed from Piercing/Fire to Crushing/Fire.
Attack Toys: Had some bug fixes and some revisions because of those bug fixes. Replicated Attack Toys were unintentionally set to a duration of forever, instead of despawning after a period. The Replicated Toys were also doing just as much damage as the master, which was not intended. They now last 60 seconds after being summoned, and they have reduced damage and health. It now only takes the master toy 1 seconds to summon a Replicate, instead of 3 seconds, and the Replicated Attack Toys energy penalty for the owner was reduced by half. In addition, higher ranks of Attack Toys can now proc replication more often.
Support Drones: Increased healing by ~10%. Reduced variance on heal from 10% to 5%

Telepathy

Summon Nightmare: No longer performs like it was during the last PTS. Functions like it does on Live, but had some revisions made along with the controllable pet changes. Now benefits from standardized pet defenses, though the Etherhound that can be summoned at Ranks 1 and 2 no longer has the additional resistance to Paranormal damage. Melee attack range of pet powers all increased from 7 feet (5 feet in some cases) to 10 feet. The Breach power provided by the rank 3 Maelstrom Horror was doing too much damage; it has been reduced, and the recharge time and charge time on that pet power have been reduced as well. He should now also properly use his other Id Blade melee attacks, instead of wanting to spam his ranged power in melee range. All of the various pets summoned by this power got various AI tweaks, and they should start fighting sooner as well as use their attacks more frequently.

Supernatural

Bestial: Command Animals: No longer has the self heal or the ability to heal you when dealing damage. Now applies various debuffs as you rank them up, starting with a Poison at Rank 1, a Bleed at Rank 2, and the Shredded debuff at Rank 3. Note that these debuffs do not count as yours for purposed such as Rupturing bleeds, they belong to your pet. Instead of repeatedly taunting your target, the attacks that they deal now generate additional threat.
Bestial: Command Animal: The bleed applied by this pet can now only stack 1 time. The chance to apply each debuff this pet applies has been increased from 20% to 30%.
Bestial: Command Animals: Attack time increased from 0.83 to 1.0 second. Damage increased to compensate.
Bestial: Command Animals: The icon for this power has been updated.
Bestial: Command Animals: The bleeds caused by this pet will no longer get consumed by Reaper's Embrace.
Bestial: Howl: Will now affect pets.

Sorcery

All Sorcery Auras now buff pets on your team.
Ritual Summons: All Rituals now have access to the Unbound Ritual advantage. This advantage costs 2 points and causes the summon to no longer require the owner to stay in the Circle. Summoning an Unbound Ritual pet does not dismiss other, Bound Ritual pets.
Ritual Pets: The ritual circle will now be dismissed when the pet is dismissed.
March of the Dead: Updated description to state that the duration of the power scales with your Intelligence. This is just a description change
Tyrannon's Familiar: Now gains additional damage resistance as he is ranked up.
Tyrannon's Familiar: Now generates additional threat.
Tyrannon's Familiar: Power Siphon can no longer be interrupted by damage.
Tyrannon's Familiar: Power Siphon no longer locks the Familiar down while it is working, it just plays a short activation when started. The timing between pulses was reduced as well.
Tyrannon's Familiar: Added a tooltip to the Power Surge buff that gets placed on the pet owner when Power Siphon is used.
Tyrannon's Familiar: Power Surge now only stacks up to 4 times.
Tyrannon's Familiar: Size of Rank 2 and Rank 3 pet increased.
Ritual of Arcane Summoning: This pet now generates additional threat, and has an AoE attack that it uses regularly. At Rank 3, it gains a weaker version of Invulnerability.
Ritual of Arcane Summoning: Recharge time of his Arcane Burst power reduced from 20 seconds to 10 seconds. It no longer erroneously does additional damage to knock immune targets.
Ritual of Ebon Summoning: Instead of gaining Fire Breath at Rank 2 and Conflagration at Rank 3, now has access to a version of Fire Strike and Fire Ball at Rank 1, and gains Immolation and some melee AoE (when in melee range) at Rank 2, and Pyre at Rank 3.
Ritual of Primal Summoning: The old "mystic wolf" style version of this pet has been rebuilt as an Ice pet, and can be found there. The new version represents an incarnation of primal might, and instead uses Bites, Lunges, Howls, and Thunder to attack your foes. At higher ranks, gains an ability that grants resistance based on what it is being attacked by and also gains a self-buff when it is low on health.
Ritual of Radiant Summoning: Instead of just dealing damage at Rank 1 and having a self-heal ability, this pet is now capable of healing you or others at Rank 1, as well as dealing damage. Beneficence, the heal, and Rebuke, the damage power, both increase in strength as you rank up the critter. At Rank 2, this pet still gains access to Condemn, and at Rank 3 it gains a passive aura that heals nearby friends. In addition, this pet has access to a melee sword attack if foes get too close.
Ritual of Radiant Summoning: Condemn recharge time reduced from 20 seconds to 15 seconds.
Ritual of Radiant Summoning: The AI for this pet got a large rework. They are now more intelligent about when to heal versus when to attack. In most modes, they want to heal targets that are below 80% health, otherwise they will attack. In Attack mode, they will only want to heal targets when they are below 50% health. In all modes, they will heal targets up to 100% if they have no one to attack.

Ice

Arctic Beast: A new controllable pet has been added to the Ice framework. This is an updated version of the old Mystic Wolf that was summoned by Ritual of Primal Summoning. The new version is not a Circle pet, and has been reworked to be comparable to the other pets. This means the large amounts of AoE damage it could do with Arctic Winds has been toned down. However, the snare and perception debuffs provided at rank 3 still exist and the recharge time on Arctic Winds was reduced from 20 seconds to 15 seconds. A bug was fixed with the perception debuff that would occasionally allow it to stack for a short period of time, creating impenetrable perception debuffs. The recharge on Frost Breath was reduced from 20 seconds to 10 seconds.

Darkness

Drain Life: Vampiric Sympathy: Should be able to heal the Ritual of Arcane Summoning pet, as well as any other "non-living" teammates now

Powers

General

Due to the powers changes, all players will receive 1 Free Retcon.
Fixed a bug that would allow someone to use 2 block powers simultaneously. This should no longer be possible.
Energy Storm: Fixed typo.

Darkness

Shadow Bolts: This powers energy gain incorrectly had variance and has been fixed.

Martial Arts

Dual Blades: Rain of Steel: An error in the power was causing this power to gain too much energy after the initial attack. This has been fixed.

Unarmed: Righteous Fists: This powers energy gain incorrectly had variance. This has been fixed.
Dragon's Wrath: Tiger's Courage: Fixed typos.
Inexorable Tides: Fixed description at all ranks.

Ice

Ice Form: Should no longer leave FX on all the time, they should only appear in combat like other Passive Form powers.

Telepathy

Ego Placate: Svengali's Guile: The debuff provided by this advantage was unintentionally stacking with itself if you repeatedly used this power on a target. It no longer stacks, and instead refreshes the duration of the debuff.
Summon Nightmare: Night Terror: Now has an icon in the retcon window.

Fire

Immolation: The recharge time will no longer increase when you upgrade to rank 2 or 3, it will stay at a base of 90 seconds.
Conflagration: Fixed multiple issues with this power and the advantage. Rank 3 now requires Line of Sight to function properly. The default version of the power no longer creates an entity that causes the rain, it causes the rain directly. This allows the power to persist if the main target is killed, and also hits all targets on every tick. Also fixed the advantage so that it truly tracks your target.
Flashfire: Now persists if the primary target dies.

Sorcery

Sigils: The issue with sigil costing was found and fixed. They should be much cheaper again.

Telekinesis

Telekinetic Shield: Telekinetic Reinforcement: The buff icon provided by this advantage was not working properly, and will now last the full 8 second duration. Note that this was just a display issue, the resistance buff itself was working.

Power Armor

Concussion Beam: Fixed the description to list it as a toggle instead of a maintain, and now states (correctly) that it repels the target, not knocks.

Might

Roomsweeper: The damage bonus this power was receiving when hitting Knock immune targets was double the value that was intended. This bonus has been reduced to the proper value.
Uppercut: The damage bonus this power was receiving when hitting Knock immune targets was double the value that was intended. This bonus has been reduced to the proper value.
Haymaker: The damage bonus this power was receiving when hitting Knock immune targets was double the value that was intended. This bonus has been reduced to the proper value.

Nemesis

There are 3 new Nemesis Powers Options. Celestial, Bestial and Infernal.
There are 4 new Nemesis Minion Powers. Electricity, Fire, Ice, and Supernatural.

There are 5 new Nemesis Minions. Werewolves, Vampires, Frozen Minions, Burning Lackeys, and Charged Dynamos.
-The new Nemesis Minions each have 3 title rewards Perks.

The compass will now only use the base mission to decide which waypoints to display, rather than the submission (which can cause other waypoints to not show up on the compass).
When a Sk Champions Zones to a new map the level will no longer display as 0
There is now a separate HUD option for hostile players in reticule settings
The Tailor UI performance has been substantially improved
The Need or Greed window should no longer keep you from mousing over items to see the stats and name
Added tooltips to the Build Selection screen.
Added confirmation dialog when exiting the game from the login screen.
Several improvements have been made to the Main Pet UI
The countdown timers and health bars should once again appear correctly above objects that have timers or health bars.
Text in the mission tracker will now align with the edge of the screen properly.
Forcefield numbers should once again show up correctly on teammates.
Changed how the sweep on buffs works, to hopefully reduce choppiness and incorrect display times.
Fixed a typo in the drop mission confirmation dialog box.
Bags should once again open correctly when clicking on them.
The required components in the Crafting development window will now update after changing the filters.
Empty power slots on the pet bar should no longer appear.
Interact progress bars now have an improved appearance for small values.
Highlight and Cntrl+C now work correctly again.
Items in the auction house will once again appear correctly, and display their counts.
Items should once again show their quality in both Loot and Crafting windows.

General

Dueling now supports whitelists. Players can restrict challenges to their Group, Super Group and friends. To enable the duel whitelists you can use the command (/whitelist_duels 1) To disable duel whitelist you can use the command (/whitelist_duels 0)

Critters:

Teliosaur will now stick to his part of Monster Island. He should no longer follow players around Monster Island.

Costumes

The Egyptian neck piece should now work on all chest categories
Naming for the Hammer Bracers has been updated
Increase the number of Sovereign Sons neck accessories on more chest categories
The ruffles neck accessory is now allowed on Fullshirts and Jackets
Female tails should now find themselves reattached and in the correct place.

Animation

Munitions animations should no longer be affected by Acrobatics. This fix will also clear up some other charge animation issues.
The Palm Blast Animation has been updated to address a small issue.

Items:

The bind restrictions on the Devices from the Until Vendor have been updated to Bind on Equip (BoE) -This affects the SL devices as well-
Teleiosaurus Pheromones: No longer de-toggles when you are held or disabled. Recharge reduced from 30 minutes to 30 seconds.

DEMONFLAME

2010-10-20T14:35:00.003+02:00

The Demonflame Is All-Consuming

More than two decades ago, Luther Black used the full power of his DEMON organization to initiate the Demonflame incident. Through vile magics and human sacrifice he created a flaming tower that rose into the sky, and at its peak he attempted a horrific ritual in order to pry open the doors between worlds and drain the power of the Qliphothic entity known as Sharna-Gorak the Destroyer. He was stopped by the combined forces of brave superheroes and, to everyone's surpise, VIPER. Luther Black's plan was foiled, and the tower disappeared.
Now, Luther Black has taken a desperate gamble to re-create the Demonflame incident. If he succeeds, he may be able to steal the essence of the Kings of Edom and become the apotheosis of Qliphothic power.

Demonflame is our second Adventure Pack, available now! Explore brand new content across a wide range of levels and battle the horrors of the Qliphothic realm to foil Luther Black's plans. Here's what you can expect from Demonflame:

A Realm of Chaos: Explore the chaotic expanses of the Qliphotic Realm and its towering demon spires, and prevent Luthor Black from succeeding where he failed before.
Challenge Yourself: Champions from levels 11-40, solo or with friends, can play Demonflame. The challenge will scale to match your play style. Team up with your friends and take on greater challenges, or use the Difficulty Slider to push the powers of your enemies over the top!
New DEMON Devotees: Encounter the villains of DEMON, including Jack Fool, The Left Hand and the master magus Luther Black.
UNTIL's Project Hermes: Earn UNTIL Merits from Project Hermes to buy special costume pieces, action figures, devices and more.

A Journey Most Treacherous

Demonflame features all new locations for you to visit, as well as new contacts and enemies to meet. Enter the Qliphothic realm and defeat Luther Black ... if you dare

Witchcraft: While patrolling the astral plane for mystic threats, Witchcraft came across a disturbance: something was channeling massive amounts of chaotic energy between our world and the Qliphothic plane. Now Witchcraft needs help to seal this rift between dimensions before it rips our world apart.

Major Violette Boudreau: Though members of Project Hermes aren't practicing mages themselves, Boudreau has an almost preternatural knack for sniffing out anything magical. Major Boudreau has helped UNTIL stop some big-name magical villains in her tenure as the lead of Project Hermes.

Luther Black: Wresting knowledge from the occult tome Liber Terribilis - The Book of Harrowing - Luther Black created the magical sect DEMON to seize the power of the Qliphothic Realm and become a god. His first attempt nearly destroyed him decades ago, but he has slowly rebuilt and is ready to try again.

The Left Hand: The Left Hand is an angel of darkness and Luther Black's chief enforcer. Spawned from Luther Black's occult knowledge and the stolen power of Sharna-Gorak the Destroyer, the Shining Darkness brought The Left Hand's corrupted flesh and hellfire blood into being.

The Qliphothic Realm: The Qliphothic Realm, the Shining Darkness, is an ancient plane filled with decaying energies that corrupt and destroy all. Few who venture here survive the horrors of this dimension, and those who do are often changed by the experience.

The Qliphothic Towers: These eldritch towers were built by Luther Black and DEMON to help focus the powers of the Kings of Edom into lesser incarnations of themselves so they could be used as fuel for the Demonflame ritual.

The Kings of Edom: Imprisoned eons ago in the Qliphothic Realm to prevent them from consuming all life in the known dimensions, these cosmic monsters constantly try to break the barriers between worlds. These are the Kings of Edom, promising great power to any who help them escape the Shining Darkness.

New Costume Pieces

Bundled with Demonflame are some great Qliphothic-inspired, unlockable costume pieces!

Perks from the Underworld

Demonflame features three new perks for you to earn. Collect them all to complete your set.

Black Eye: Defeat Luther Black.

Dexterous: Defeat The Left Hand.

Malleus Maleficarum: Complete the Demonflame Adventure Pack.

All New Action Figures

Also bundled into Demonflame are three brand-new Action Figures: Qliphothic Devourer, Chaos Elemental and Edomite.

ANNIVERSARY EVENT

2010-09-01T16:12:00.001+02:00

There's a Party in Renaissance Center!

Heroes! Since your arrival in Millennium City, you have worked together to thwart a Qularr Invasion, hold the front lines at the Project Greenskin and Force Station Steelhead, and save the world from Takofanes and his undead army. Your victories over Shadow Destroyer and the Supreme Serpent have kept more than this plane of existence safe. You used time itself as a weapon to defeat Therakiel.
We thank you from the bottom of our hearts for all your heroic deeds and your continued support of Champions Online over this past year. In celebration, we are decking out Millennium City's Renaissance Center for a party!
The Anniversary Celebration will begin August 27 at 12:01 a.m. (07:01 GMT) and conclude with a bang on September 6 at 3:00 a.m. (10:00 GMT).
During the Anniversary Celebration, Renaissance Center will have a number of party-going contacts located around a giant cake. They will offer heroes a gift once a day for the duration of the event. Use the gift and receive a random party favor. In addition, the enemies in all major zones (Millennium City, Canadian Wilderness, Southwestern Desert, Lemuria, Monster Island and Vibora Bay) will have a chance to drop the anniversary gifts upon defeat.
You can hold on to an unopened gift indefinitely, and you may trade them. Once opened, the favors are bound to you and expire after 30 days. All costume unlocks are account wide and have no expiration.

Here are some of the favors that you can find during the event:

	Party Bomb - PBAoE emote trigger that makes affected targets dance.
	Party Cake - Heals 808 hit points.

	Party Soda - Refills 1097 energy.
	Water Balloon - Hits someone with a splash! Be careful: The target may catch the balloon and throw it back!

Costume Unlocks

We've also got some great Anniversary-themed costume unlocks. These of course are yours to keep forever.

Great New Perks

You can earn six perks related to the Anniversary Celebration. Here are three sneak peeks:

Celebrate - Earn this by participating in the event.

It's Not a Lie! - Visit the Anniversary Cake in Ren Center.

Splash - Be sure to toss the balloon to your friends and SG mates!

We'll See You There

Be sure to keep an eye out for the Cryptonauts, the Champions Online development team Supergroup. We'll be online and celebrating right alongside you!

Welcome to the Champions Online Anniversary Event!

Welcome to the Champions Online Anniversary Event!
From September 1 (at 10:00 a.m. Pacific) until September 7 (at 10:00 a.m. Pacific), you can play Champions Online absolutely free! Never purchased the game before? No problem; you can play too!
Simply click "Play Now" to activate your account and to begin downloading the game.

We're holding an in-game event in Millennium City! Be sure to stop by during your adventures for special prizes and unique encounters.

To celebrate our one-year anniversary, we're holding a special sale in the C-Store. During the Anniversary Event, enjoy a 20% discount on nearly everything in the C-Store!

Having trouble with your Champions Online experience? Look no further for assistance. Just visit our Champions Online support page.

PATCH NOTES 26 DE AGOSTO DE 2010

2010-09-01T16:00:00.003+02:00

General

Auction lot expiration time has been increased to 14 days.
[French and German] Special characters can once again be used in chat text.

Tailor

Adding buckled boots on female models to more categories.
The Tailor preview will no longer disappear when an option is moused over.
Fixed a bug that would sometimes cause a Nemesis minion in the Nemesis Editor to appear as a placeholder costume.

UI

Players who were previously Leaders of a Super Group will now be automatically moved to the new Leader rank, unless the Leader has already adjusted Super Group member ranks since the 08.24.10 patch to LIVE.
The “Must have Target” message will no longer jitter on the screen. It now moves off the screen correctly.

PATCH NOTES 24 DE AGOSTO DE 2010

2010-09-01T15:59:00.001+02:00

Known Issues

The Serpent Lantern mission does not update correctly. The overall wrapper mission will time out, but the submissions will remain. Players will need to manually drop the submissions or their character will receive no loot drop from the instance.
The loot for Very Hard and Elite Difficulty levels is currently the same. Internal discussions are occurring on how best to address this.
Existing Super Groups may need to manually rename some ranks as the new ranks names will not overwrite the existing ones.
Costume unlocks availability in the Tailor will not be updated until the player logs in the character that originally earned the costume unlock.

New Features

Super Group Improvements

We have added a number of new features to Super Groups. At the same time, we did a user interface overhaul and made it easier and more straightforward to use.
Super Groups can now advertise for recruits by making their Super Group visible in the new Super Group search window. Players can specify how casual the group is, what kinds of things they like to do, point to their website, and so on. The game now keeps a historical log of key events in the Super Group such as when people join, change ranks, and level up.
We have also added an Event system, which lets players create and schedule events for members to attend. Members can sign up for the event, decline it, and leave notes about it.
At player request, we have doubled the number of ranks available to Super Groups. New groups will start with the ranks Recruit, Junior Member, Member, Senior Member, Junior Officer, Officer, Senior Officer, and Leader. These can be customized as desired.
All of these features and more can be accessed by players from the Super Group window (G by default!).

Difficulty Slider

We added an additional level of difficulty to the in game Difficulty Slider. The new level is titled "Elite". Hit Points, damage, chance to dodge, critical hit chance, movement speed, perception, distance, and aggro range are all increased at this difficulty level. The enemy also has a modest hold resistance, knockback resistance, and a slightly reduced time between attacks.

Emotes

We've added several emotes that were previously unavailable!

Cheer02, Countdown, Cry, Dance_Club , Dance_Happy, Dance_LegKick, Dance_Mix, Dance_RaiseTheRoof, Dance_RunningMan, Dance_Snake, Dance_WaveHands, FlipCoin , No02, RPS_Rock, RPS_Paper, RPS_Scissors, Shrug, Yell02

In addition, all previous emotes featured in Champions had the text edited and a consistent naming convention applied.

AFK , AFK_Sit , Alert , AngryTalk , BattlePlan , BattlePlanListen , BeastForage , BeastMenace , BeastsScratch , Beckon , Blush , Bow , Bye , Cannibalism , Charge , Cheer , ChestPound , Chicken , Clap , Computercounter , Computerkneel , Computerwall , Cough , Crackneck , Cry , Dance , Dance_Flair , EvilLaugh , Flex , Flirt , Frustrated , Giggle , Grin , Happy , Hello , Helpwave , Howl , Jumpingjacks , Kiss , Laugh , Lickpaw , Lookout , LookoutKneel , Meditate , No , Point , Pushups , Repair , Rest , Salute , Shock , Shy , Singkneel , Sitheroic , Sitchair , Sleep , Smile , Spacewalk , Stretch , Superdance01 , Talk , Talkheadset , Talkheadsetkneel , Talkpoint , Talkrage , Talktohand , TalktoHQ , Tapfoot , Taunt01 , Taunt02 , Thumbsup , Wave , Wink , Worship , Yell , Yawn , Yeah , Yes

We have also updated the UI functionality. Players will now be able to pin/unpin the emote dialogue window for easier to their favorite animations. The pin button is on the current emotes list above the scroll bar. Once pinned, player can hit F12 to resize the box to their liking! As always, players can access the emotes window by typing /emotes in the chat window.

Pet Powers UI

The updated pet powers UI offers vastly better control for players. The new pet control bar now offers the ability to "pop out" a separate button bar for each controllable pet, allowing you to have some pets on passive, some on assist, and some on attack. Players can also set the keybinds of the global pet tray. In addition, the dismiss pet command now has its own button and is not mixed in with the other pet commands.

Patch Notes

Art:

The Ren Center has been given a facelift to make it a better space for social activities! Players will see a large stage where the Powerhouse was formally located. The Powerhouse is now located to the side of the stage along with tailors and vendors. Across from the stage, players will find several tailors and vendors.
Tweaked the female model to correct a subtle bodyscaling issue where one arm was longer and thinner than the other.

Audio:

Updated the Bronze King and Arvad voice over in an attempt to rid the stutter from the Mandragalore cutscene.
Ismashual's voice over in Plunder the Sea Open Mission is now audible.
Added voice over to the commanding officers outside of Champs HQ during the Millennium City Tutorial celebration.
Added electrical audio to the Powerhouse entrance.
Added sound effects to the Nemesis Prison Break cutscene.

Crafting:

All the mysticism resource nodes in Canada now have the correct skill up reward table.

Critters:

Reduced the damage of Pulson type rifle attacks. This affects many critter groups throughout the game, including VIPER.
Henchmen that use rifles now have an additional "bolt" attack with a very short cooldown to use in between sprays, streams, and charged blasts. This affects many critter groups throughout the game, including VIPER.
The critter version of Ego Form will no longer repeatedly deal 0 slashing damage to the critter using it.
Several critters were still using the old Supernatural power templates and have been updated.
- The following critters now use the Infernal Supernatural powerset:
  - John Devil
  - The Drifter
  - Goblin
  - Will of Takofanes
- The following critters now use the Bestial Supernatural powerset:
  - Bludhound
  - Clark Robinson
  - Dr. Zephrin
  - Atomic Gorilla (This critter also still has his special radiation powers.)
  - Edmund Cully
  - Gus Sweetland
  - Marcello Bocchier
The critter power Vile Breath now shows a debuff icon on targets affected by it.

CStore:

The CStore has received a complete overhaul! Players will no longer need to go to the website for screenshots and information about the items. The information is now available directly in the game. Additionally, items have been recategorized and the navigation improved.

Cutscenes:

Updated many cutscenes throughout the game. Enjoy the improvements!

Gamepad Controllers:

The client will now correctly load joystick mapping.
Updated the joystick default button names.

General:

A free retcon has been given to all users.
All costume unlocks from items, including weapon geo unlocks, are now account wide. Players will need to log in the character that originally earned the costume unlock to have access to it on other characters.
Added access to Vibora Bay to the jets in Monster Island, Desert, and Canada.
Increased the sidekicking range for players in instances. Players should no longer see mobs change levels when in different parts of the maps or player death. This change only applies to static maps.
Auction lots in the Auction House will now expire after 7 days.
Added costume unlock as a searchable type in the Auction House.
Renamed the Perks Costume Quartermaster to Costume Quartermaster.
Players can now rotate the camera (default bound to the left mouse button) and still continue to turn their character.
The worship emote no longer pops character into a prostrated position.
The /sitchair emote no longer changes the characters facial expression.
The /afk and /afksit emotes now show up properly in the ingame emotes list.
Added a check so that players you are ignoring can no longer trade with you.
Players will no longer see the swinging grapple fire again for a split second when it is released.
French and German Localization Only: Updated several incorrect strings.

Items:

Removed "Unique" tag from many of the Open Mission reward items so that players can get more than one of the item.
Therakiel's Wings will drop when defeated at the Elite Difficulty level.
Replaced archery replacement power art so that it only gives effects and no longer replaces weapon geo.
Re-implemented the Voltanic Potential retail bonus item. It now does an apply power every 2 seconds when the player has low health. The cfx also relies on being at low health.
Adjusted the stats on Awareness Shot so that it is appropriate compared to the other rewards dropped in the "Psi-mon Said" mission.
Changed the range on the Psionic Accelerator to 100 feet to make it better fit how ranged items normally work.
Updated the U0-9 Crybaby Grenade so that it will effectively placate the enemy.
Updated the Sovereign Sons Tribal Skulls Necklace and Sovereign Sons Tribal Teeth Necklace so that the correct item is now on each.
Corrected the New Shadows Blood Blade costume so it no longer looks like the New Shadows Vampiric Blade.
Fixed a bug that was causing BOE Crafted Travel Devices to be automatically bound is open slots remained in the players main bag.
Corrected the grammar in the description for Sky Strike Armor Suit.

Missions:

Canada:
- Canadian Taken: The scientists now give immediate mission credit when the VIPER guarding them are defeated.
- The Lost Convoy: Fixed the popup text to only show when the player gets near the contact. Also, moved the waypoint to be more centrally located over the objective.
- Sabotaging the Snake: The mission has been updated to give more guidance to the Free Human Test Subjects objective. Players must defeat the Lab Director and get his keycard. The keycard allows the lab to be opened and the test subjects to be freed.
Civilian:
- Civilian Granted Missions: The missions granted by rescued civilians have had the restrictions on the number of missions granted per XP level removed. If a rescued civilian has a mission available in the correct level range, it will offer it after being rescued. These missions are now repeatable up to 4 times per day by players. This change affects Millennium City, the Desert, and Canada.
Desert:
- Blank and Steins Monster: changed the name of the mission drop item to match the mission
- Snake Gulch: Changed the Weaponsmith groups to only have 1 Weaponsmith as the difficulty was a little too high.
- Snake Gulch: Updated the display names of the crates.
- Stronghold: SPARC team members now finish their post-battle healing faster.
Desert Crisis:
- Rounding up Rads: Players will no longer receive 2 credits for picking up each uranium bomb.
- Removed destructibles that were causing players to get stuck in geo when picked up.
Lemuria:
- Players will no longer receive the multiple Enter Ocean prompts in Aegir moon pool.
- Fuse Cruise: Slowed the bot speed from 12 to 10. If the bot gets more than 200 feet from the player, the mission will fail.
- Kelp Forest Carnivores: The mission will now correctly grant a reward.
- Reavers of the Deep: Changed the mission to look for Bleak Minion kills instead of Karkaradons.
- Ship of Fouls: Changed the mission to only count credit for the critter spawned by the ship. Also, made the ship spawn on map create so it's always spawned and moving around.
- Trumping the Shark: The mission will no longer spam the entire map with messages for the Open Mission.
Millennium City:
- Bullet for Biselle: The mission now properly gives XP/Resources for killing the assassins.
- Carl's gym door now reads properly
- Cazulon vs. Miniature Hero: Changed Dr. Zahwah to despawn instead of trying to run to the exit.
- Defender Fanboy: All VO and text should match up correctly.
- Pow Wow: Moved the entrance door for the mission. The door is on the same building, but around the corner from the old location. The waypoint has been updated to reflect the new location.
- Prints Violent: Changed the door interact to say Enter ARGENT HQ instead of just the mission name as several different missions use the same door interact. Added another way for players to obtain the access card besides critter drops. The card can now be found in a desk that can be searched. Also, changed the failure text on the doors to use the word "Card" since players need a card to use it instead of a code.
- Snakes in the City: Added text to the mission to specify the mission uses the rear entrance of City Hall.
- Vex in the City: Changed the Destroid "Tough" critters in the mission to be Normal.
Millennium City Tutorial:
- Speed in Need: Added safeguards to prevent players from becoming trapped in Kinetik's cage.
Monster Island:
- ET Clone Home: The mission no longer requires walkie-talkie item for turn in.
- Silverback Sound-Off: The Sound Chip will no longer drop from Ayssa before players investigate the hologram.
- Raptor Rush: Added a map icon for the mission.
Nemesis:
- Top Men: Changed the required level of the mission to level 40, since the mission requires access to UNITY HQ.
Serpent Lantern:
- Applied a cooldown timer to the mission. The mission can be completed 4 times per day. Note: A day starts at GMT -8.
- Turn off the Generators: Exterior Bunker Alpha: The Osprey at the first checkpoint will now properly patrol after dropping off troops.
- Turn off the Generators: Exterior Bunker Bravo: Added a 5 minute respawn timer to the tanks to prevent players from not being able to complete the mission.
- Turn off the Generators: Exterior Bunker Bravo: The tanks on this map are no longer throwable.
- Stop the Ritual in the Underground Temple: Added attendant High Serpent Mages to the Spirit Serpent fight.
- Stop the Ritual in the Underground Temple: Added beams of light that appear in the "safe" alcoves in the Spirit Serpent fight.
UNITY:
- Changed the Unity and Unity 2 mission to be repeatable 1 time per day.
- U.F.O. No!: Updated the mission text.
Vibora:
- Assembling the Antidote: The Open Mission will now clean up and reset if all players leave the warehouse map.

Perks:

Only those players in the open mission zone volume will receive credit for completing the open mission Perk.
NEW! Bark at the Moon: Added a new perk for Vibora Bay. Have a howling good time!
Battle Toad: Fixed the perk to grant the proper "Battle Toads" title when 1000 Gadroon have been defeated.
Jar Collector: Moved the jar from beneath the prison geo.
Magic Dance: The perk now requires players to Dance with Bowii.

Powers:

Players will no longer have maintained auto-attacks getting 'stuck on' when releasing the key while held/disabled. Also, player auto attacks will no longer get enabled when the scheme is set to maintain and the power being activated is an enabler.
Effects that inflict a poison damage DoT (Viper's Fangs advantage for Martial Arts - Fighting Claws, Planar Fracture power, the new Command Animals) now inflict a lethargy inducing poison, in addition to toxic damage. This poison slightly reduces movement speed, about one half the efficacy of a normal "snare" effect. As with most snaring effects, the players' resistance to root effects reduces the efficacy of this snare.
Electricity:
- Thunderstrike: The power now correctly locks players down during charge and activation. The powers was supposed to, and has always had the cost discount for a powers that does.
Gadgeterring:
- Toxic Nanites: The power is now hue shiftable.
Martial Arts:
- Form of the Untamed Warrior: The power will now correctly continue to grant stacks after zoning.
Might:
- Defiance: The power can now be hue shifted by players.
Munitions:
- Added a debuff icon and tooltip to FireSnake Power Replace. The actual power is unchanged.
Power Armor:
- Micromunitions: The power can now be hue shifted by players.
- Targeting Computer: The power will no longer lock a player in "Combat Stance" while slotted.
- Targeting Computer: Removed the power art from the power. It caused players to be stuck in action mode.
Sorcery:
- Auras will no longer lock a player in "Combat Stance" while the power is slotted.
- Arcane Vitality: The FX for Ranks 2 and 3 will no longer get stuck on characters affected by the power that move out of range.
Supernatural:
- Bestial: Frenzy: Fear Sense Advantage: The advantage will now correctly do more damage on feared targets.
- Bestial: Howl: The check that was looking for targets being affected by Enrage was not working properly, and would sometimes not apply Enrage to targets that should have been affected. Players are now able to grant/refresh stacks of Enrage properly with this power.

Tailor:

Players will now have more Tights options to choose in the Costume Creator. The sets include Curves, Curves Sharp, Spikes, Lines, and Straps (female model only).
All characters with Archery powers can select from any bow model in the Tailor, rather than having to unlock it via weapon replace.
Several high-heeled shoes and boots for females have been added to the game.
Players will now be able to set different colors for the inside and outside of capes. (Yes it is finally fixed!)
Added a small selection of hairs to certain head categories.
Added more mouth and eye accessories to work in other head categories. Also, allowed more eye, hair, and mouth accessories for cowls, hoods, and other categories
Allowed the Sovereign Sons belt and back piece to be used in more categories.
Flagged several shoulder pads to work in other categories. Also, added gladiator flat and gladiator spikes female shoulder pads.
Allowed more material options for female jacket chests and cyborg chests.
Made the rock hand texture to be a rougher texture and removed the texture restriction for leather and metal hands.
Added the ability to view unpurchased C-Store costume pieces in the tailor. All parts that come from a C-Store unlock will be marked with a yellow CP icon. If you own the costume, the CP icon will be grayed out.
Players can once again use costume unlocks in the Nemesis Editor.
Added the possibility to purchase the costume sets from the C-Store directly from the tailor. The confirmation window for the C-Store transactions will appear when you click the "Purchase" button on the last screen of the tailor.
The costume randomizer will only use costume pieces that have been purchased from the C-Store or have been unlocked through normal gameplay.
The costume unlocks tab will show the C-Store costume set the costume piece belongs to in the tooltip, if the costume piece comes from a C-Store costume set.
Costume pieces unlocked through normal gameplay will be displayed with an unlocked padlock icon.
Items will now display the costume unlock icon grayed out if all the costumes on the item have been unlocked.
All head categories are once again accessible to players.Players can now user keyboard navigation in Character Creator and Tailor combo boxes. Players can use the up/down keys to preview the costume pieces and use Enter to select an item.
The previewed category can now be cleared when aborting a change. The category now behaves like the rest of the combo boxes in the Tailor.
The munitions weapons default names have all been updated.
Improved the randomizer in the tailor using styles.
Corrected a client cost calculation bug that was causing some players to be charged in the Tailor even though no changes to the character took place.
Fixed a bug where it would be possible to be overcharged for a costume change at the Tailor. In some cases causing the server to not save the costume if it required more resources than the character has available.
Using the muscle slider in the Tailor will no longer cause lag.
Tweaked the position of the character in the Character Creator so that the foot does not clip as much with the platform.
The error notification in the Character Creator, Tailor, and Nemesis Creator that stated that a bug report has automatically been created has been removed for being wrong.

UI:

The Pet Tray UI has been updated:
- Displays a list of all currently active pets. The tray can be further expanded to allow players to individually control their pets.
- Pets now get their own window next to the team list.
- The dismiss pet command now has its own button and is not mixed in with the other pet commands (The dismiss command is the little red x's in the pet list and the global tray).
- It is now possible to set the keybinds of the global pet tray. The initial defaults are Ctrl+F1 to Ctrl+F5 for the primary pet behaviors.
Added context menus in the minimap and map for players, critters, contacts, and missions. For players, critters, and contacts players will see the standard context menu. For missions, players can either view the details or toggle the mission it make it the primary mission.
Added an Emotes window and a way to access it from the Emotes list in the Chat Menu.
The chat text for emotes has been removed for emotes executed without targeting anyone. The text will remain for targeted emotes.
There is now a lock button on the owned powers window (accessed with the P key) that will disable dragging powers in the power tray via ctrl+drag or the right mouse button+drag.
Tray tooltips are now disabled during combat. If you would still like to see them, you can toggle this option per character in the Basic Options tab of the options menu.
The hide tooltips during combat option has been moved from the Basic tab back to HUD tab.
The hide tooltips option is now defaults to off.
Minimap options and Tray tooltip options now persist when a player zones or logs out of the game.
The "right click" menu in the friends UI was updated to add a "warp to" option if the target referred you to the game. Before it would only show up if you referred that player to the game.
Added cooldown timers to missions in the Completed Mission section of the Mission Journal.
Added a Gamma Calibration panel to the UI. This screen will display the first time that a user logs into Champions per machine. If a user wants to change the setting at a later date, a button has been added to the Graphics Options.
Added a button to the Champions menu to open up the Super Group window.
The Super Group vault will no longer hold the previously entered values for resources after exiting the window.
Updated the displayed locations for friends to show the game name for other shards instead of showing the map name. CO players on Live will see "Champions Online" for friends on PTS and "Star Trek Online" for friends on STO.
Players can now use /addfriend and /friend to add a friend to their Social UI.
The checkboxes in the Chat settings window now properly update when you change tabs.
Updated the character mood window to be easier to read. Also, players can now reset the mood using /changemood. This can also be set in the character context menu.
The OK and Cancel key bindings are not listed in the keybind UI.
Added the escape menu to the keybind UI.
The keybind for /CamFar is now using the correct label, instead of the reset camera label.
Players can now use the standard keybinds in the item discard confirmation window.
UI lists will now fit contents across all list rows, and take into account scrollbars.
Fixed a bug where trying to resize a list column would selecting the row underneath instead.
The health bars of several SuperVillains no longer appear as friendly critters.
Fixed an issue with successive contact dialogs not appearing correctly if the player closed the dialog with the "X" button on the window. This was causing a state in which a player could become locked in an interaction.

2010-08-22T11:16:00.002+02:00

Great Updates on the Way

We're happy to introduce the Summer Update! It's chock-full-o' the changes our players have been asking for. From Supergroup improvements to new emotes to a full-on Renaissance Center upgrade, we took all our cues from you. What follows is a list of all the great stuff coming your way in late August.

Renaissance Center Social Space - We've updated the social heart of Millennium City to better accommodate vendors, moved the Powerhouse to a better location and .
Bug Fixes - We ran a fine-toothed comb over the game and cleared up quite a few issues.
New Tights Sets - New costume options for traditionally-minded heroes.
Female High-Heeled Boots - Five new high-heeled tech boots for female characters.
New Flyover Cut Scenes - Brand new cut scenes for the following areas:

Every Crisis zone.
Every Post-Crisis zone.
Foxbat's Studio.
All boss encounters in Therakiel's Temple.
Even more!

All New Emotes - Brand new emotes to help you express yourself. Some new emotes are:

Countdown
Dance_RunningMan
FlipCoin
A paper, rock, scissors emote pack.

Supergroup Improvements Galore

Read Supergroup news.
Twice as many ranks: We're up to eight!
Create and view events. Events can have a level range, rank requirements and desired attendance.
View your Supergroup's calendar.
View your Supergroup's roster.
Add a link to your Supergroup's website.
Compose Supergroup messages.
Search Supergroup profiles by language, group types, difficulty, etc.

C-Store 2.0 - We've upgraded the in-game C-store to be more navigable and user-friendly.
Therakiel's Wings reward - Now a 100% drop on Elite mode!
Auction Item Expiration - Item auctions will expire after seven days.
And more! - Even more great additions and changes are on the way. Be sure to log in and check out the Summer Update!

State of the game August 20

2010-08-22T11:06:00.001+02:00

Executive Producer Shannon Posniewski checks in with this month's state of the game.
Hello Champions!
A quick update on what's going on at Champs HQ.

Summer Update Live August 24

As most of you know, we've been focused on the Summer Update for the past month or so. The final candidate is now on the test server and is scheduled to go live on August 24! Right now it's looking good to go. This update has a lot of quality of life things in it: Supergroup improvements, an updated Renaissance Center, many new emotes, a harder difficulty setting, costume unlock fixes, MOAR TIGHTS and much more.
You may remember that we were planning on doing a big pet update with this release. The feedback from the test server was that the changes didn't make pets feel better or more fun or more interesting. So, we decided to take the pet changes out for this update. Once the Summer Update is live, we'll have something new to try on the test server. We expect that the new pet changes will be in the next update.
As always, check out the patch notes for the complete list.

Happy Anniversary!

In addition, September 1 is a special day for Champions Online: It's our first anniversary! In celebration, we're going to be holding a party in Millennium City from August 27 through September 6 - when the celebration ends with a bang. Stop by the new Renaissance Center to get gifts (costume pieces, water balloons, party bombs and more!) and have some fun with your fellow heroes. Let's hope Destroyer doesn't show up!
Also, if you have friends who would like to try Champions Online, they can play from September 1 to September 7 (at 3:00 a.m. Pacific) for free! (This is an unrestricted trial, not a demo.)
We'll be running a couple of special events during the celebration as well, which we'll announce soon.

The Demonflame

Near the end of September (or early October) is our next adventure pack: The Demonflame. Like all adventure packs, this is a complete story with new areas and villains that will take two to three hours to experience. You can take any size team at any level from 11 to 40 and go on the adventure. The plot revolves around the return of Luther Black and his attempt to transform into an omnipotent (and evil) god. You travel to the strange Qliphothic realm to investigate and defeat Black's latest plot.
In response to feedback we've received from Serpent Lantern, we've revisited some parts of this adventure to make sure that it doesn't feel repetitive. We also learned some lessons about how to help people along in the story and how to keep the team together, which we've rolled into Demonflame. It'll be up on the test server very soon and we can't wait to hear what you think!
In addition, we have some updates to Nemeses on deck. We've added Celestial, Bestial, and Infernal power framework choices to Nemeses. Their minions also get some fleshing out with Electricity, Fire, Ice, and Supernatural powers. We've also got some new wardrobe choices for the minions: ice, fire, and electricity-flavored tights; werewolves; and vampires. Here's what a the ice guys and werewolves look like:

Pet Update

As mentioned above, we're iterating on the pet changes in Demonflame as well. Ame will be following through on this and will be working with you through the PTS forum. It's a secret that I'm not supposed to tell you, but we think we have found a way that we can let you choose what your pet looks like from a list of costumes. We can't let you tailor them or have complete arbitrary choices, but we think we can give you some options. But, shhh, I didn't say anything.
If you like pets, please hop in and give check out the changes once a Demonflame build is up (in a week or so).

What's Next?

We have several things we're looking at post-Demonflame besides the next adventure pack. We don't have any firm commitments or dates on anything yet, and if something isn't mentioned here that doesn't mean we aren't looking at it. I figured, though, that I'd give you a glimpse into what we're exploring.

Love for Westside: Westside is pretty gloomy and lacks story cohesion. We'd like to tighten up Westside so it flows well, has exciting conclusions to its story lines and is more pleasant to play in.
Scaling instances: Make all instances scale to team size like the adventure packs do.
Difficulty slider: Push the effects of the slider into more of the content. Today, it's pretty limited.
Love for Lemuria: Lemuria is pretty, but it's hard to figure out how far away bad guys are. It also lacks a hub and is hard to get to. We'd like to hook it into Millennium City, give it a hub and spend some time fiddling with ways figure out when you're in range.
New PvP Arena

TEST SERVER UPDATE 7/31/10

2010-08-03T16:48:00.001+02:00

Known Issues

The pet tray UI is still in progress. A new version of the UI will be released in the next build.
Existing Super Groups may need to manually rename some ranks as the new ranks names will not overwrite the existing ones.

New Features

Pet Powers Pass
Pets have undergone a major overhaul. We've tightened up their design, made their control and systems more uniform, given them some new universal abilities, and tried to make them just overall more interactive, more balanced, more useful, and generally more fun.

On the UI side, the pet controls now offer vastly better control for players with multiple pets. The new pet control bar now offers the ability to “pop out” a separate button bar for each controllable pet, allowing you to have some pets on passive, some on assist, and some on attack. In addition, many pets now have special custom abilities that can be activated by unique icons that appear on their individual control bar. Finally, many pets that weren't controllable (without an advantage or being at max rank) now are, including all of the sorcery Ritual summons and the Telepathic Nightmare.

Mechanically, pets now have more hit points (generally about 1/2 what a player has) than before, take dramatically reduced damage from area of effect attacks, and automatically heal out of combat. In addition, all pets can now fly, with the exception of the wolves summoned by “Command Animals” (who instead get a travel power killing lunge).

First, the big downside - pets are no longer “free” damage. Pets now have energy pools, and will display an energy bar, and their attacks cost energy. Most pets lack any way to generate their own energy, or an equilibrium score. Instead, they get their energy from their controllers. There is a new power called “Transfer Energy” that is automatically granted (for no cost) to any player that purchases a power from the new category “Controllable Pets”.

The “Transfer Energy” power costs an amount of energy equal to your Equilibrium, reduced (as usual) by your Intelligence. Each active pet you control gains an equal portion of this energy. If you have only one pet active, it will gain an amount of energy equal to the unreduced cost (i.e. your Equilibrium). The more pets you have active, the less energy each pet receives, but the more total energy they will be granted. For example, with an Equilibrium of 50, if you have one pet, it will get 50 energy. If you have two pets, they will both get 37. Three pets will each get 29, and four pets will each get 24.

Pet attacks are very efficient per point of energy; each attack only “costs” about 2 - 6 points of energy, and pets attack once per second. Assuming you transfer 50 at a time, that means you only have to transfer power roughly once every 15 - 20 seconds. The idea is that you should think of the “Transfer Energy” button as just another attack button to be worked into your rotation.

On the upside, pets now have more attacks and powers that do more damage per attack. They no longer automatically transfer a majority of their aggro to their owner, and some pets, such as the redesigned Arcane Constructs, are built and equipped for tanking. Caveat: all pets transfer ALL their accumulated aggro to their owner when they die! Each pet now gains new attacks and new powers when you rank them up, in additional to doing more damage with their existing attacks, rewarding you for your investment. Finally, many pets have had some cosmetic and costume upgrades, making the higher rank versions stand out better and properly show off the grandeur of your mighty companions.

Difficulty Slider
We added an additional level of difficulty to the ingame Difficulty Slider. The new level is titled “Elite”. Hit Points, damage, chance to dodge, critical hit chance, movement speed, perception, distance, and aggro range are all increased at this difficulty level. The enemy also has a modest hold resistance, knockback resistance, and a slightly reduced time between attacks.
Loot reward tables for Lair bosses have been updated to reflect the new level of difficulty. Enjoy!

SuperGroup Improvements
We have added a number of new features to SuperGroups. At the same time, we did a user interface overhaul and made it easier and more straightforward to use.
SuperGroups can now advertise for recruits by making their SuperGroup visible in the new SuperGroup search window. Players can specify how casual the group is, what kinds of things they like to do, point to their website, and so on. The game now keeps a historical log of key events in the SuperGroup such as when people join, change ranks, and level up.
We have also added an Event system, which lets players create and schedule events for members to attend. Members can sign up for the event, decline it, and leave notes about it.
At player request, we have also added four new ranks to SuperGroups. New groups will start with the ranks Recruit, Junior Member, Member, Senior Member, Junior Officer, Senior Officer, and Leader. These can be customized as desired.
All of these features and more can be accessed by players from the SuperGroup window (G by default!).

Emotes
All previous emotes featured in Champions had the text edited and a consistent naming convention applied. Additionally, we’ve added several emotes that were previously unavailable! The new emotes follow:
/emote Air_Guitar
/emote Bow_Formal
/emote Cheer02
/emote Countdown
/emote Cry
/emote Dance_Club
/emote Dance_Happy
/emote Dance_LegKick
/emote Dance_Mix
/emote Dance_RaiseTheRoof
/emote Dance_RunningMan
/emote Dance_Snake
/emote Dance_WaveHands
/emote FlipCoin
/emote Frustrated
/emote No02
/emote PickMe
/emote RPS_Rock
/emote RPS_Paper
/emote RPS_Scissors
/emote Shoo
/emote Shrug
/emote Yell02
We have also updated the UI functionality. Players will now be able to pin/unpin the emote dialogue window for easier to their favorite animations – once pinned, player can hit F12 to resize the box to their liking!

Patch Notes

Art
The Ren Center has been given a facelift to make it a better space for social activities! Players will see a large stage where the Powerhouse was formally located. The Powerhouse is now located to the side of the stage along with tailors and vendors.

Audio
Updated the Bronze King and Arvad voice over in an attempt to rid the stutter from the Mandragalore cutscene.
Ismashual’s voice over in Plunder the Sea Open Mission is now audible.
Added voice over to the commanding officers outside of Champs HQ during the Millennium City Tutorial celebration.
Added electrical audio to the Powerhouse entrance.
Added sound effects to the Nemesis Prison Break cutscene.

Crafting
All the mysticism resource nodes in Canada now have the correct skill up reward table.

Critters

Reduced the damage of Pulson type rifle attacks. This affects many critter groups throughout the game, including VIPER.
Henchmen that use rifles now have an additional “bolt” attack with a very short cooldown to use in between sprays, streams, and charged blasts. This affects many critter groups throughout the game, including VIPER.
The critter version of Ego Form will no longer repeatedly deal 0 slashing damage to the critter using it.
Several critters were still using the old Supernatural power templates and have been updated.
The following critters now use the Infernal Supernatural powerset:
- John Devil
- The Drifter
- Goblin
- Will of Takofanes
The following critters now use the Bestial Supernatural powerset:
- Bludhound
- Clark Robinson
- Dr. Zephrin
- Atomic Gorilla (This critter also still has his special radiation powers.)
- Edmund Cully
- Gus Sweetland
- Marcello Bocchier
The critter power Vile Breath now shows a debuff icon on targets affected by it.

CStore 2.0 (Please note that this feature is not available on PTS)
The CStore has received a complete overhaul! Players will no longer need to go to the website for screenshots and information about the items. The information is now available in game. Additionally, items have been recategorized and the navigation improved.

Cutscenes
Updated many cutscenes throughout the game. Enjoy the improvements!

General
All costume unlocks, including weapon geo unlocks, from items are now account wide.
Added access to Vibora to the jets in Monster Island, Desert, and Canada.
Improved the sidekicking range for players in instances. Players should no longer see mobs change levels when in different parts of the maps or player death. This change only applies to static maps.
Auction lots in the Auction House will now expire.
Renamed the Perks Costume Quartermaster to Costume Quartermaster.
Players can now rotate the camera (default bound to the left mouse button) and still continue to turn their character.
The worship emote no longer pops character into a prostrated position.
The /sitchair emote no longer changes the characters facial expression.
The /afk and /afksit emotes now show up properly in the ingame emotes list.
Added a check so that players you are ignoring can no longer trade with you.
Added a pop-up window to better inform users when they are attempting to log into a locked shard.
Players will no longer see the swinging grapple fire again for a split second when it is released.

Items
Removed “Unique” tag from many of the Open Mission reward items so that players can get more than one of the item.
Therakiel's Wings will drop when defeated at the Elite Difficulty level.
Replaced archery replacement power art so that it only gives effects and no longer replaces weapon geo.
Adjusted the stats on Awareness Shot so that it is appropriate compared to the other rewards dropped in the "Psi-mon Said" mission.
Changed the range on the Psionic Accelerator to 100 feet to make it better fit how ranged items normally work.
Updated the U0-9 Crybaby Grenade so that it will effectively placate the enemy.
Updated the Sovereign Sons Tribal Skulls Necklace and Sovereign Sons Tribal Teeth Necklace so that the correct item is now on each.
Corrected the New Shadows Blood Blade costume so it no longer looks like the New Shadows Vampiric Blade.
Fixed a bug that was causing BOE Crafted Travel Devices to be automatically bound is open slots remained in the players main bag.

Missions

Canada
Canadian Taken: The scientists now give immediate mission credit when the VIPER guarding them are defeated.
The Lost Convoy: Fixed the popup text to only show when the player gets near the contact. Also, moved the waypoint to be more centrally located over the objective.
Sabotaging the Snake: The mission has been updated to give more guidance to the Free Human Test Subjects objective. Players must defeat the Lab Director and get his keycard. The keycard allows the lab to be opened and the test subjects to be freed.
Civilian
Granted Missions: The missions granted by rescued civilians have had the restrictions on the number of missions granted per XP level removed. If a rescued civilian has a mission available in the correct level range, it will offer it after being rescued. These missions are now repeatable up to 4 times per day by players. This change affects Millennium City, the Desert, and Canada.
Desert
Blank and Steins Monster: changed the name of the mission drop item to match the mission
Snake Gulch: Changed the Weaponsmith groups to only have 1 Weaponsmith as the difficulty was a little too high.
Snake Gulch: Updated the display names of the crates.
Stronghold: SPARC team members now finish their post-battle healing faster.
Desert Crisis
Rounding up Rads: Players will no longer receive 2 credits for picking up each uranium bomb.
Lemuria
Players will no longer receive the multiple Enter Ocean prompt in Aegir moon pool.
Ship of Fouls: Changed the mission to only count credit for the critter spawned by the ship. Also, made the ship spawn on map create so it's always spawned and moving around.
Millennium City
Carl’s gym door now reads properly
Cazulon vs. Miniature Hero: Changed Dr. Zahwah to despawn instead of trying to run to the exit.
Defender Fanboy: All VO and text should match up correctly.
Pow Wow: Moved the entrance door for the mission. The door is on the same building, but around the corner from the old location. The waypoint has been updated to reflect the new location.
Prints Violent: Changed the door interact to say Enter ARGENT HQ instead of just the mission name as several different missions use the same door interact. Added another way for players to obtain the access card besides critter drops. The card can now be found in a desk that can be searched. Also, changed the failure text on the doors to use the word "Card" since players need a card to use it instead of a code.
Snakes in the City: Added text to the mission to specify the mission uses the rear entrance of City Hall.
Vex in the City: Changed the Destroid “Tough” critters in the mission to be Normal.
Monster Island
ET Clone Home: The mission no longer requires walkie-talkie item for turn in.
Silverback Sound-Off: The Sound Chip will no longer drop from Ayssa before players investigate the hologram.
Raptor Rush: Added a map icon for the mission.
Nemesis
Top Men: Changed the required level of the mission to level 40, since the mission requires access to UNITY HQ.
Serpent Lantern
Applied a cooldown timer to the mission. The mission can be completed 4 times per 24 hour period.
Turn off the Generators: Exterior Bunker Alpha: The Osprey at the first checkpoint will now properly patrol after dropping off troops.
Turn off the Generators: Exterior Bunker Bravo: Added a 5 minute respawn timer to the tanks to prevent players from not being able to complete the mission.
Turn off the Generators: Exterior Bunker Bravo: The tanks on this map are no longer throwable.
Stop the Ritual in the Underground Temple: Added attendant High Serpent Mages to the Spirit Serpent fight.
Stop the Ritual in the Underground Temple: Added beams of light that appear in the "safe" alcoves in the Spirit Serpent fight.
UNITY
Changed the Unity and Unity 2 mission to be repeatable 1 time per day.
U.F.O. No!: Updated the mission text.
Vibora Bay
Assembling the Antidote: The Open Mission will now clean up and reset if all players leave the warehouse map.

Perks

Only those players in the open mission zone volume will receive credit for completing the Perk.
Battle Toad: Fixed the perk to grant the proper "Battle Toads" title when 1000 Gadroon have been defeated.
Jar Collector: Moved the jar from beneath the prison geo.

Powers

Players will no longer have maintained auto-attacks getting 'stuck on’ when releasing the key while held/disabled. Also, player auto attacks will no longer get enabled when the scheme is set to maintain and the power being activated is an enabler.

Electricity
Thunderstrike: The power now correctly locks players down during charge and activation. The powers was supposed to, and has always had the cost discount for a powers that does.
Gadgeterring
Toxic Nanites: The power is now hue shiftable.
Martial Arts
Form of the Untamed Warrior: The form now works correctly after zoning. Players no longer need to restart the toggle.
Munitions
Added a debuff icon and tooltip to FireSnake Power Replace. The actual power is unchanged.
Power Armor
Targeting Computer: The power will no longer lock a player in “Combat Stance” while slotted.
Targeting Computer: Removed the power art from the power. It caused players to be stuck in action mode.
Sorcery
Auras will no longer lock a player in “Combat Stance” while the power is slotted.

Tailor
Players will now have more Tights options to choose in the Costume Creator. The sets include Curves, Curves Sharp, Spikes, Lines, and Straps (female model only).
Several high-heeled shoes and boots for females have been added to the game.
Players will now be able to set different colors for the inside and outside of capes. (Yes it is finally fixed!)
Added a small selection of hairs to certain head categories.
Added more mouth and eye accessories to work in other head categories. Also, allowed more eye, hair, and mouth accessories for cowls, hoods, and other categories
Flagged several shoulder pads to work in other categories. Also, added gladiator flat and gladiator spikes female shoulder pads.
Allowed more material options for female jacket chests and cyborg chests.
Added the ability to view unpurchased C-Store costume pieces in the tailor. All parts that come from a C-Store unlock will be marked with a yellow CP icon. If you own the costume, the CP icon will be grayed out.
The costume unlocks tab will show the C-Store costume set the costume piece belongs to in the tooltip, if the costume piece comes from a C-Store costume set.
Added the possibility to purchase the costume sets from the C-Store directly from the tailor. The confirmation window for the C-Store transactions will appear when you click the "Purchase" button on the last screen of the tailor.
Costume pieces unlocked through normal gameplay will be displayed with an unlocked padlock icon.
All head categories are once again accessible to players.
Players can now user keyboard navigation in Character Creator and Tailor combo boxes. Players can use the up/down keys to preview the costume pieces and use Enter to select an item.
The previewed category can now be cleared when aborting a change. The category now behaves like the rest of the combo boxes in the Tailor.
The error notification in the Character Creator, Tailor, and Nemesis Creator that stated that a bug report has automatically been created has been removed for being wrong.

UI
The pet tray now expands to show the list of all currently active pets. The tray can be further expanded to allow players to individually control your pets.
Added context menus in the minimap and map for players, critters, contacts, and missions. For players, critters, and contacts players will see the standard context menu. For missions, players can either view the details or toggle the mission it make it the primary mission.
Added an Emotes window and a way to access it from the Emotes list in the Chat Menu.
Tray tooltips are now disabled during combat. If you would still like to see them, you can toggle this option per character in the Basic Options tab of the options menu.
The hide tooltips during combat option has been moved from the Basic tab back to HUD tab.
The hide tooltips option is now defaults to off.
Minimap options and Tray tooltip options now persist when a player zones or logs out of the game.
The "right click" menu in the friends UI was updated to add a "warp to" option if the target referred you to the game. Before it would only show up if you referred that player to the game.
Added cooldown timers to missions in the Completed Mission section of the Mission Journal.
Added a button to the Champions menu to open up the SuperGroup window.
Updated the displayed locations for friends to show the game name for other shards instead of showing the map name. CO players on Live will see "Champions Online" for friends on PTS and "Star Trek Online" for friends on STO.
The checkboxes in the Chat settings window now properly update when you change tabs.
The OK and Cancel key bindings are not listed in the keybind UI.
Added the escape menu to the keybind UI.
The keybind for /CamFar is now using the correct label, instead of the reset camera label.
UI lists will now fit contents across all list rows, and take into account scrollbars.
The health bars of several SuperVillains no longer appear as friendly critters.
Fixed an issue with successive contact dialogs not appearing correctly is the player closed the dialog with the “X” button on the window. This was causing a state in which a player could become locked in an interaction.

State of the game July 20

2010-07-21T12:38:00.001+02:00

Executive Producer Shannon Posniewski checks in with July's State of the Game.
Hello Champions!
School's out and summer is upon us (in the northern hemisphere)! I'm just recently back from a vacation to the Adirondacks, where I was eaten by black flies, the temperature was high, and the internet non-existent. But while I've been basking in DEET, the team has been hard at work.

Summer Update

It's been HOT here at Cryptic HQ, so we've been hiding in the air conditioning and working on the Summer Update. We hope to have our first candidate up on PTS on Friday or early next week! We're aiming for going live on August 17, but that depends on how it looks on PTS and what you think.
Here's what's coming in the Summer Update:

Supergroup Improvements
- We've added a number of new features to Supergroups. At the same time, we did a user interface overhaul and made it easier and more straightforward to use.
- Supergroups can now advertise for recruits by making their supergroup visible in the new supergroup search window. You can specify how casual your group is, what kinds of things you like to do, point to your website and so on. We now keep a historical log of key events in the supergroup such as when people join, change ranks and level up.
- We've added an Event system, which lets you create and schedule events for members to attend. You can sign up for the event, decline it and leave notes about it.

Here's a couple screenshots to show you where we're going:

Pet Powers
- We're giving pet powers a huge and complete overhaul in this update. We are greatly changing the way they operate.
- Previously, players controlled pets through special multi-mode powers and clever pet AI. Now players will be more explicit with their pets. An expanded user interface will let you control how they operate (e.g. going into special modes) more directly.
- We have made pets stronger overall. They have more powers and they do more damage. However, they now need energy to do their work. They don't have their own energy builders like players; you will need to make sure that you keep your pets juiced up.
- We're very excited about these changes and think they make pets a whole lot more fun to play, but we want to know what you think. When these changes get to PTS, try them out and let us know. Balseraph will also write up a big post about all the changes when we get it out there.

Ren Center Update
- WWe gave Ren Center a facelift, made it a better space for social activities, and made a place for the tailors to live. We moved the Powerhouse to the side, built a big stage and tailors have moved into a covered area on the other side.

Emotes
- We've added over 20 new emotes and improved the UI so you can see and use them all easily. There are many more dances, rock/paper/scissors, coin flip and a bunch more.

CStore 2.0
- We've rewritten the interface to the store. Previously, you would need to go to the web to get reasonably good pictures and information about the items. We've integrated these pictures into the new store. In addition, we've categorized the items better and made navigation more clear.

Civilian Mission Fixes
- In a previous update, we made a bug fix which greatly reduced the number of civilian missions given to players. Many people didn't like this change because they like these instanced missions. In this update, you can now also go out and actively get these missions by rescuing civilians. If you find a civilian being threatened and defeat the critters around him, the citizen will give you a mission (assuming he has a valid one for you).

Tights and High Heels
- Men and women will be able to choose from many more Tights options in the costume creator. In addition, we made a few different high-heeled shoes and boots for women.

Difficulty Slider
- Our new difficulty slider will "go to 11" (one higher than we have now).

Other Major Changes

Costume Unlocking
- When you find an item which unlocks a costume part, it is supposed to unlock for all your characters. We found many that didn't and fixed them.
Sidekicking in an instance no longer has a distance requirement. As long as your Mentor is on the map, you stay sidekicked.
Our crack video team went through a bunch of the zone cutscenes and made them look more cinematic and awesome!
VIPER's pulson gun will do less damage now.

These are just the big ticket items. The patch notes will have the full list of changes and bug fixes. You'll be able to see all of this (and maybe a couple more goodies if we get them done and tested in time) very soon on PTS. Let us know what you think!

The Demonflame

Near the end of September, we are planning on launching the next adventure pack, The Demonflame. Here's the basic back plot, which some of you may remember from the Champions pen and paper game.
Nearly 20 years ago, Luther Black used the full power of the DEMON organization that he'd built to cause the Demonflame Incident. Through vile magic and human sacrifice he created a flaming tower that rose into the sky, and at its peak he tried a horrific ritual to let him pry open the doors between worlds and take on unnatural powers. He was stopped by the combined forces of brave superheroes and, to everyone's surprise, VIPER. No one knows why VIPER lent their aid, but VIPER and DEMON have been fighting each other ever since. Luther Black's plan was foiled, and the tower disappeared.
Now, with his plans deeply shaken and the day of reckoning coming fast, Luther Black has taken a desperate gamble to re-create the Demonflame incident. If he succeeds, he may be able to open a portal to the Qliphothic realm, and attain his apotheosis of evil.
Work with the mystic hero Witchcraft of the Champions and Violette Boudreau of UNTIL's Project Hermes to discover what DEMON and Luther Black are planning in the chaotic realm known as the Qliphothic. Be prepared to face otherworldly horrors in order to stop Luther Black before he gains the power he seeks!
The adventure pack has a new environment (Qliphoth) and a new critter group (the Qliphothic Horrors). It also has a bunch of other cool stuff in it. We've been playtesting it in-house and it's looking really great.

And Also ...

There is also some feedback that we're looking into. We're not promising anything (yet), but I wanted you to know we're looking at what you have to say.

Holds in game don't seem to work correctly. Pressing Z does not seem to help break a hold more quickly. We're investigating this right now.
Many think that too many critters in game can dispel travel powers. We're looking at ways to make them less irritating while still not letting players kite or ignore them with impunity.
There have been reports than critters with Defiance are too tough compared to other critters of the same level without Defiance. They are supposed to be more difficult, but we will investigate and see if they are turned up too high.

Keep cool, Heroes!
-poz

PARCHE 28 DE OCTUBRE

2009-10-28T21:19:00.003+01:00

Dawn of the Undead Heroes open mission timers have been reduced to 30 minutes.
Dawn of the Undead Heroes instances are no longer level-gated.
Zombie Apocalypse is available as low as level 5.
Zombie costume pieces now unlock account-wide.

User Interface and Chat

Fixed issue that was preventing players from using Super Group chat.

Missions/Environments

Millennium City

Vanguard's beacon no longer stays on after being defeated.
Vigil and Fletchette II open missions will now properly reset.
Crypt instances (and missions) are now available at any level.
Reset timers on all Blood Moon open missions have been reduced to 30 minutes, down from 120 minutes.

Monster Island

Bite missions now count kills per player (or team), rather than zone-wide kills.

Items

Fixed bug where Wolfsbane, Sol Amulet, and Talbot's Talisman were counting their durations in game time rather than real time.
Werewolf/Hunter amulets are now removed from inventory if the appropriate missions is dropped.

Costume Creator/Tailor

Zombie costume pieces are now unlocked account-wide. You must log in to the character that unlocked these costumes once before they'll be available to all other characters on your account.

Hero Games

You can now play Zombie Apocalypse as low as level 5.
Score report was now display mid-game if you click the "Report" button.

PARCHE 27 DE OCTUBRE BLOOD MOON

2009-10-28T21:18:00.004+01:00

The Blood Moon has risen! Join the fight against Takofanes in Millennium City, become a Werewolf or Hunter on Monster Island, or jump into Zombie Apocalypse PvP.
The Celestial power set has been released. Players will need to complete the Dawn of the Undead Heroes event if they wish to unlock the set early (on their entire account). Everyone else will be granted access to it on November 10th.
Mission Sharing has changed based on player feedback. See "Missions/Environments" for more details.
Six new missions have been added to City Center in Millennium City for level 18 heroes.
A free Retcon will be granted to all characters created before October 27th, 3AM PDT who do not already have one. This does not affect any previously purchased Retcons.

General

The ChangeInstance command now has you spawn at the nearest unlocked re-spawn point to prevent abuse.
The profanity filter no longer affects NPC text.

User Interface and Chat

Secondary tooltips should no longer overlap the primary tooltip.
Recipe tooltips should no longer overlap the primary tooltip.
Inventory items will now play a sound when picked up in the inventory UI.
Crafting UI now uses the blueprint description and the resultant description.
Power tray icons will now light up when queued. This will provide better feedback for when you press a power key.
Target of Target should appear on top of target always by default.
There is now a purchase prompt at the Auction House to prevent accidental purchases.
Players can now right click other players on the map to open the context menu.

Powers

The aggro that is generated by healing has been reduced by 75%.
Defense and Power boosts now significantly repair Personal Force Field (and other force field-like powers).
Crippling Challenge: Description has been updated to increase clarity, however the advantage's functionality remains unchanged.

Celestial

The Celestial power set is now available. This Support set provides dual-role abilities, allowing you to heal your allies and harm your enemies at your whim. Complete the "Dawn of the Undead Heroes" event to unlock the set two weeks before everyone else gains access to it!

Electricity

Death Arc: The damage dealt by Death Arc was found to be too high. We have changed the way this advantage functions; the damage dealt by the arc effects is now limited to 30% of the maximum total hit points of any target that is defeated by the triggering Gigabolt. So, the bigger the stronger the enemy you defeat, the more damage the resulting bolt will deliver.

Fire

Conflagration: Power should now perform better and appear more responsive. Functionality remains unchanged.
Thermal Reverberation: Description has been corrected, the power's functionality remains unchanged.

Force

Containment Field: Energy cost has been reduced by 35%.
Containment Field: No longer provides any protection to targets that it fails to hold by itself. The protection it grants scales down with the strength of the hold against enemies that resist some or all of the hold.
Force Cascade: Containment Blast: No longer provides any protection to targets that it fails to hold by itself. The protection it grants scales down with the strength of the hold against enemies that resist some or all of the hold.

Munitions

Breakaway Shot: This power no longer stacks multiple copies of "Defiant!" when striking multiple targets.
Gatling Gun: This power no longer stacks multiple copies of “Enraged” when striking multiple targets.

Power Armor

Targeting Computer: The correct names for Ranks 2 and 3 will now show in the combat log.

Telepathy

Mindful Reinforcement: The heal portion now dimishes properly with damage taken (was sometimes allowing a heal even when shield was broken).
Mindful Reinforcement: Ranks 2 and 3 now work properly. Previously, they always healed for the full amount after 8 seconds, even if the shield was broken. Now they heal for double the amount of shield remaining after 8 seconds.

Travel Powers

Swinging is now correctly affected by travel power-canceling effects.

Critters

The Overbrain is now more aggressive and (appropriately) smarter.
The "Net attack" used primarily by Lemurians is now a hold.

Missions/Environments

The way mission sharing works has been changed. Continue reading for details.
Timed missions can now be shared. The value of the timer will be inherited by your teammates.
Missions that grant items at the start can now be shared, and any required items will be copied to each teammate.
Over 100 unshareable missions have been made shareable due to the above changes.
The new "Crossover Mission" feature allows you to more easily share missions in teams! When a teammate shares a mission that you are not eligible for (or have already completed) you will be offered a "Crossover Mission" so that you can continue playing together! These missions grant Crossover Experience and Resource rewards based on player level that doesn't count toward story completion or grant item rewards. NOTE: These are not currently available for Nemesis or Patrol missions.
Fixed a number of holes in the world geometry.

Desert

Sinisister: Players now need to stay with Witchcraft to get mission credit. Mission text has been updated to reflect this.
Dud Reckoning: Reduced respawn time for the bombs to three minutes.

Canadian Wilderness

Questionite Authority: The guard and hostage should no longer get stuck. The contact was also moved to make him more visible.
Argent's Black Gold Grab: Added a waypoint for missions objectives.
Reign of Frogs: Players should now get credit for destroying teleport pads.
Task for A Turncoat: Escort respawn time has been reduced to three minutes.
Hunter Hunting: Players now have to defeat the Hunter Patriot Lt. to get the mission.

Millennium City

The Jet now has a map marker.
Landmark icons have been added to the map for the bank, auction house, crafting trainers, perk vendor, and charity vendor.
Champions HQ now has a super group landmark icon on the map.
Invasion's Epilogue...or Epitaph: Players will now get a prompt to enter the mission when approaching the Mother Ship. The waypoint has also been moved to the mission door.
Crate and Peril: Increased crate respawn time to one minute.
Added 6 new missions to City Center at level 18 spanning two new story arcs:
- The corporate giant ARGENT has gotten hold of the top-secret schematics for the super-villain prison Stronghold and is planning to sell it to the highest bidder! Heroes must infiltrate ARGENT headquarters to recover the plans and discover the mastermind behind this plot!
- There's a conflict breaking out between the mysterious PSI organization and the ARGENT mega-corporation. What is so valuable that has these two powerful groups fighting each other? No matter what the cause, the bloodshed must be stopped!

Monster Island

Crisis: Teleios will summon Teleioclones to back him up when he fights more than one player.
Dr. Silverback's hologram should no longer be attacked and/or killed by critters.

Lemuria

Spy's Guise: Norum now spawns closer to the player.
Give A Dog A Bone: Players should now be able to complete the mission and perk.
Ship Of Fouls: Ghost Ship no longer gets destroyed before the Captain is defeated. The open mission should now restart correctly.

UNITY

When the Cat's Away: Hostages should now be able to pathfind around the tank. Waypoint has also been moved to a place the hostage could easily reach.

Nemesis

Decrowning the Aegir: Players should no longer encounter subs which are not attackable.
Hung Out To Dry: Players should no longer encounter minions which are not attackable.
Villains, Vandals, & Vermin: Nemesis should no longer become invincible if player is defeated.

Perks

Fastest Gun in the West: Defeat Ascii Oakley to earn this perk.

Items

DNA Resequencer, Cold Fusion Reaction, and Second Hind-Brain are now properly tagged as Primary items rather than Secondary.
Fixed a number of typos in item descriptions. Please continue reporting more if you find them.

Crafting

Arms Trainers now correctly offer the Tier 4 Healing Patch.
Players should see more components back from many Algorithmic Primary Upgrades when deconstructing them.
Blueprints should no longer have redundant descriptions.

Costume Creator/Tailor

Full and partial masks now work in the "High collars" category.

Hero Games

PvP report column tooltips should now be instantaneous.

CRYPTIC STORE NOTICIAS

2009-10-20T11:41:00.007+02:00

no os perdais los nuevos trajes emblemas asi como los "rename" "costume slots" "additonal slots" y "full retcons" disponibles en C-STORE

Halloween Costume Set
(640 Cryptic Points)
Halloween Masks and costume pieces are here! The pieces can also be purchased individually:

Skeleton Set: 240 Cryptic Points
Web Set: 240 Cryptic Points
Head Set: 240 Cryptic Points

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cyborg Beast Costume Set (240 Cryptic Points)
This futuristic costume set allows players to create mechanical monstrosities fighting on the side of good. The set includes Beast Head, Wings, Tail, Beast Legs, Claw Hands and Claw Feet. NOTE: This costume set unlocks for every character on an account.

Epic Samurai Costume Set (240 Cryptic Points)

This fantasy costume set lets players create an arcane hero and is especially suitable for creating Samurai, Knights or Armored Spell Casters. The set includes Mouth Accessory, Side Accessory, Top Accessory, Chest Armor, Shoulder Armor, Bracers, Belt, Leg Accessories and Boots. Two custom emotes also come with this set! NOTE: This costume set unlocks for every character on an account.

Bestial Emblem Pack (80 Cryptic Points)
The Bestial Emblem Pack contains 10 three-color emblems of animal heads. These can be used on a variety of costume parts including chest, back and head emblems, insignia shoulder pads, and belt. NOTE: This emblem set unlocks for every character on an account.

Bear, Gorilla, Piranha, Rat, Rhino, Snake, Stag, Tiger, Vulture, Wolf.
Sci-Fi Emblem Pack (80 Cryptic Points)
The Sci-Fi Emblem pack contains 10 three-color emblems representing planets, comets, asteroids, and other heavenly bodies. These can be used on a variety of costume parts including chest, back and head emblems, insignia shoulder pads, and belt. NOTE: This emblem set unlocks for every character on an account.

Asteroid Belt, Comet, Solar System, Planet with Asteroids, Planet with Rings, Ray Gun, Rocket Ship Sleek, Rocket Ship Large, Sun Flare, UFO.
Weapons Emblem Pack (80 Cryptic Points)
The Weapons Emblem Pack contains 10 three-color emblems of guns, swords and exotic weapons. These can be used on a variety of costume parts including chest, back and head emblems, insignia shoulder pads, and belt. NOTE: This emblem set unlocks for every character on an account.

Curved Axe, Jeweled Axe, Straight Axe, Bow/Arrow, Flame Sword, Hand Gun, Kunai, Submachine Gun, Angel Wing Sword, Bat Wing Sword.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Additional Character Slots (1200 Cryptic Points per 4 additional slots)
New accounts come with eight (8) character slots. Players can purchase sets of four (4) additional character slots per account.

Full Retcon (1000 Cryptic Points per token)
This grants a single character a one-time opportunity to completely “wipe the slate clean” in terms of all powers, travel powers, advantages, talents and characteristics. This type of “token” is purchased at the account level, but is used by a single hero. NOTE: A single hero can fully retcon once per token.

Character ReName (280 Cryptic Points per ReName)
Over the course of time, a hero may endure life-changing events that drastically alter his powers and person and literally see him reborn. While this can simply be reflected in his costume at any tailor, changing his very identity may also be desirable. This type of “token” is purchased at the account level, but is used by a single hero. NOTE: A single hero can be ReNamed once per token.

Additional Costume Slots (400 Cryptic Points per two additional slots)
Heroes have the opportunity to unlock three (3) Individual and one (1) Super Group costume slots by level 40. Players can purchase sets of two (2) additional costume slots to increase the flexibility of their hero! NOTE: These costume slots are applied to every character on an account.

GALERIA FRIKI 2

2009-10-15T21:31:00.008+02:00

PARCHE 13 DE OCTUBRE

2009-10-13T19:35:00.001+02:00

General

Power House 2.0 is here! Enjoy the newly designed training center, and make sure you check out the Battle Station room, where you can spawn various types of enemies, set their difficulty and density, and test out powers without losing Hero Points or gaining XP.
NOTE: If you last logged in inside the Power House, when you next login you will still be in the old Power House. In order to reach the new one, you’ll have to exit the Power House, then re-enter, and you’ll be sent to the New and Improved one.
Dueling has been removed from the lobby of the Power House and from Club Caprice. Players who wish to duel in the Power House should team up in the lobby, then use the teleporter to access the Dueling room. We’ll be looking into making this simpler in future patches.

User Interface and Chat

Made several improvements to the Map UI.
You can now left-click or right-click to place a custom waypoint on the map.
To open the mission journal for a mission, you must now double-click the mission area on map.
The minimap now uses an arrow to represent hostile mobs.
Resources will now always display in the UI, even when you have zero of a certain type.
Opening the All Powers UI now closes the Owned Powers UI. Clicking back will return to the Owned Powers UI.

Missions/Environments

Fixed a bug when receiving a citizen mission while choosing a reward left the Accept button disabled.
New repeatable Bounty Hunter missions have been added to each major zone in the game.

Desert

Project Awakening Drones will now read Project Awakening Security instead of Bureau 17 Robots.

Monster Island

Reduced Simorgh's damage and lifetime.
Raptor Rush: Now an actual Open Mission.
Raptor Rush: Wave alerts are now sent through Local chat instead of Zone chat.
Raptor Rush: Dino waves should no longer stack on top of one another.
Raptor Rush: Open mission rewards are now dropped after completing all waves.

Perks

Fixed an issue that allowed Perk Rewards to be researched and sellable. Perk rewards will also now Bind on Pickup.

Nemesis

Fixed a bug where your teammate’s Nemesis name wouldn't format or display correctly when viewing a teammate's mission.

Crafting

Harvest nodes will now properly appear on the map in addition to the minimap.

Costume Creator/Tailor

Ctrl-Z and Ctrl-Y are now usable as keyboard shortcuts for Undo and Redo in the Costume Creator and Tailor.

TEST SERVER UPDATE 7 DE OCTUBRE

2009-10-11T13:14:00.000+02:00

Critters
• Reduced Simorgh's damage and lifetime.
• Project Awakening Drones will now read Project Awakening Security instead of Bureau 17 Robots.

General
• Removed Dueling from the lobby of the Power House and Club Caprice

Perks
• Fixed an issue that allowed Perk Rewards to be researched and sellable. Perk rewards will also now Bind on Pickup

User Interface
• Ctrl-Z and Ctrl-Y are now usable as keyboard shortcuts for Undo and Redo in the Costume Creator and Tailor.
• The headshot in the builds window should now properly resize when it's size changes.
• Harvest nodes will now properly appear on the map in addition to the minimap.
• Several improvements to the Map UI
• Tweaked display of resources will now always show the local amount If you have global resources the national amount will be displayed.
• Fixed a bug when receiving a citizen mission while choosing a reward left the Accept button disabled.
• Fixed a bug where your teammates Nemesis name wouldn't format or display correctly when viewing a teammate's mission. In the Team Status UI, it now properly shows the teammate's nemesis name.
• Opening the All Powers UI now closes the Owned Powers UI. Clicking back will return to the Owned Powers UI.
• You can now left-click or right-click to place a custom waypoint on the map.
• To open the mission journal for a mission, you must now double-click the mission area on map.
• The minimap now uses an arrow to represent hostile mobs.

Monster Island - Raptor Rush revamped
• Raptor Rush is now a proper open mission
• Wave alerts are no longer sent across the zone
• Dino waves should no longer stack on top of one another
• Open mission rewards are now dropped after completing all waves

Powerhouse
• Powerhouse maps have been remodeled
• Training areas are now accessed via teleporters
• We have added the Battle Station room where players can spawn representative enemies from the zone they are in and fight them without Star loss or XP gain to test powers.

Missions - Bounty Hunter
• There are many new Bounty Hunter Missions throughout the world.

PARCHE 7 DE OCTUBRE

2009-10-06T16:14:00.004+02:00

Hot Issues

Characteristics and Stats have been changed a bit. See the detailed notes under "Powers" below.
Nemesis rewards are now Bind-on-Pickup, Nemesis drops are now Bind-on-Equip.
Certain perks were able to get stuck at -1. This has been fixed, see details under "Missions/Environments".

General

Clock tooltip now shows the current in-game time of the map.
Fixed a bug when using the mouse free look mode to change the camera orientation, and moving forward would improperly change the character's movement direction.

User Interface and Chat

Player-applied buffs that stack now show a visible number to designate how many stacks are currently on the player/target.
Buff icons no longer show a timer, instead the icon itself animates as the time remaining decreases. If you want to see the exact amount of time that is left, mouse over the buff icon.
The lightning bolt by your Champion's face (near the health bar) will now show the number of power points you have available to spend in a tooltip.
Fixed several issues with the Marketplace Search feature. Searching with a name that has multiple words will now work correctly. Searching by name will no longer give you items that match the searched name in a different language. Searching with and without categories/level ranges selected will now give you more consistent results.
Hovering over NPCs now shows a grey chat icon if you are out of range.
Added a back button to the guild bank UI.
Fixed a bug in the Action Figure and Powers UI’s where icons would occasionally extend past the window.
Loot UI now sizes appropriately if it contains more than 5 items.
Opening a context menu or help ticket no longer prevents you from moving.
There are new colorblind friendly default colors for all chat channels.
The chat window background is now is fully opaque at 100% opacity and it should make reading chat a lot easier.
Changed the conning text color for Easy (Green), Sightly Easy (Blue), Slightly Hard (Yellow) and Extremely Hard (Magenta) to more color blind friendly hues. This change also applies to all item rarity colors.
Pressing escape while the UI is off will show it again.
Fixed a bug in the super group options window, where deselecting a rank name field would sometimes fill in that field with the name of the rank above it.
Fixed several popup menus that would sometimes appear offscreen to always appear on screen.
When you have a target and can't activate a power, it will grey out.
Changed it so you can list your current Marketplace sales once every second instead of once every 5 seconds. This makes adding and canceling items for sale much more responsive.
Added /TargetInfo to show the information window for the current target.
It's now possible to use Ctrl + Left Click to link an item in chat.
Fixed bug where Supergroup names were appearing incorrectly in chat.
Fixed translated display of "Supergroup" throughout the chat window.
When using the Marketplace search, the level fields now set default to be between your level and your level - 5. These can be changed as before. Also, if you pick a category that does not does not have a level (Blueprints for instance) it will now disable the level search fields and show you all items correctly.
Updated all the combat role indicator icons used on the player and team member frames.
Updated the level up indicator icon used on the player frame.
Changed the default inventory item icon background.
The Undo button in the Retcon interface will now be disabled when you can't afford it, and have a tooltip when it's disabled telling you can't afford it.
Experiment and trade UIs now remove the correct items 100% of the time when right-clicking and choosing remove.
When performing Marketplace searches, there is a new line in the UI that describes exactly what is being searched for.
Retcon UI "Goodbye" button now says "Back" since it goes back to the previous screen.

Powers

Fixed issue where your weapons or other stance animations and FX could sometimes get shut off early.
Hard caps on characteristics have been removed. The benefits granted by a statistic at the “target” point for each level are unchanged. (It is relatively easy to push stats above this target point, but it always requires that they be Characteristic Focuses combined with above average gear). The benefit for stats below the target point at each level are increased. For some calculations, this benefit is substantial. Benefits for stats above the target point at each level are decreased, and suffer diminishing returns (but, since there are no longer any hard caps, it's possible to get more total benefit).
Characteristic Focuses (All): Now follows diminishing returns model. You should see much greater benefit from low values in stats designated as a Characteristic Focus, but escalating diminishing returns once your damage bonus exceeds +30%. This is calculated per statistic.
Critical Strike Chance (DEX): The formula for critical strike chance now follows a pattern of escalating returns. The benefit for the first few points of Dexterity is small, but each additional point is worth more than the previous one. Players will be able to easily achieve critical hit values of ~6%, though with a Characteristic Focus this value can rapidly grow to more than 20%. After that point, the return for additional Dexterity diminishes.
Critical Strike Severity (EGO): The formula for critical strike severity now follows a diminishing returns model. Low values of Ego should generate a comparatively high critical severity value, with values of ~50% being easily achieved. Increases of greater than ~80%, however, will require significant investments and probably a Characteristic Focus.
Energy Discount (INT): The Energy Discount benefit from Intellect now follows a pattern of escalating returns. The benefit for the first few points of Intellect is small, but each additional point is worth more than the previous one. Players will be able to easily achieve energy discount values of ~10%, though with a Characteristic Focus this value can rapidly grow (The actual cap is very level dependent. For reference, it's about 35% at level 20, and about 50% at level 40. This value is indexed against the similarly escalating, but linear, benefits of Recovery and Endurance.). After that point, the return for additional Intellect diminishes.

Darkness

Ebon Void: This shield will now drain a small amount of life from the attacker when hit. This effect can only occur once every second.

Electricity

Ball Lightning: Energy cost has been reduced.
Electric Shield: Increased the physical damage reduction this shield provides. Also, the non-physical damage reduction now scales properly with ranks (it did not scale before).

Fire

Conflagration: Energy cost has been reduced.
Conflagration: A bug was causing this to track your target while maintained. Effect now strikes at the same location for as long as it is maintained.
Conflagration: Burning Rain: This advantage causes Conflagration to track your target while maintained. (The advantage to remove travel powers already exists in a number of other abilities, so it was removed from this advantage.)
Flashfires: Duration increased to 16 seconds, damage increased and considered to be a Damage over Time effect (Dodge defenses are extremely effective against DoT attacks).
Fire Breath: Power can now be maintained while moving. Cost and damage are unchanged. We’re currently reviewing other “Breath” powers to see if they should be changed in a similar manner, so let us know your thoughts on it.
Fire Snake: Damage is now considered to be a Damage over Time effect.
Fire Strike: Now has variance in damage. Activation time and damage slightly decreased, but Fiery Escalation benefit has been increased. Net effect is higher DPS and better effectiveness against Dodge defenses.
Immolation: Added FX to the periodic damage.
Pyre: Energy cost has been reduced.
Pyre: Damage of the Pyre Patch left behind has been reduced. Damage is now considered a Damage over Time effect. Damage of initial explosion and charge up cost is unchanged.

Critters

Gadgeteering

Fixed ranks 2 and 3 of Medical Drones showing as Field Drones in the purchase menu.
Particle Bomb: Energy cost has been reduced.
Particle Bomb: Ranks 2 and 3 were bugged. Now all ranks deal improved damage.
Orbital Cannon: Energy cost has been reduced.

Ice

Ice Shield: The unlisted linger effect from this shield has been removed. Crippling Challenge will now properly disable this Block. The chance to apply Chill was only working on physical damage, instead of all damage in melee range. Fixed this and updated the description to indicate such. Reduced the chance to apply Chill, but no longer cap attempting to apply Chill to once per second. The net effect should mean Chill should be applied roughly as often.
Ice Shield: Frigid Air custom advantage added. This allows the Chill effect from Ice Shield to be applied at a 50 foot range.

Might

Havoc Stomp: Energy cost has been reduced.
Retaliation: The Retaliation buff provided by this power now persists through a small amount of outgoing damage. This allows you to make a few autoattacks between the time you stop blocking and hit with your powerful attack, but should still not allow multiple big attacks to benefit from the buff.

Power Armor

Energy Shield: Increased the overall damage reduction this shield provides.

Sorcery

Updated descriptions for Circle of Primal Dominion, Circle of Radiant Glory, Circle of Ebon Wrath and Circle of Arcane Summoning to remove the incorrect line indicating they reduce your energy to 0.
Divine Renewal: Updated description to indicate that this power cannot be used in combat. This is just a description change, this is the way the power already works.
Eldritch Shield: Increased the non-physical damage reduction this shield provides.
Eldritch Shield: Imbue with Power custom advantage added. This advantage provides a different effect for your Eldritch Shield depending on which Aura power you are using.
Invocation of Storm Calling: Changed the way the repel works so that it will try to keep people out of melee range, but should not knock them out of the AoE range for the rest of the power.
Invocation of Storm Calling: The repel from this power will no longer work on Critters of rank Super Villain or above.
Skarn’s Bane: Description stated that the power’s cost increased over time, this was incorrect. Description has been fixed, and power remains unchanged.

Telekinesis

Telekinetic Shield: Removed the lingering effect portion of this power, as it made this Block power considerably more powerful than desired. This shield now has increased physical damage reduction when active.
Telekinetic Shield: Telekinetic Reinforcement custom advantage added. This adds a lingering physical damage resistance to Telekinetic Shield.

Telepathy

Ego Sleep: Updated description to indicate the hold from this power will break if the held target is damaged.
Psionic Healing: Corrected issue with the description of Psionic Healing which prevented the advanced description from being displayed.
Psychic Vortex: Energy cost has been reduced.

Critters

Gadroon Lancers: “Gravatic Rift” now deals less damage the further you get from it, inflicts a weaker snare, but decreases the avoidance of anyone caught in it.
Security Drones: Take more damage now so that their gameplay mechanic has a chance to play out.

Missions/Environments

Missions that are timed or begin an event such as an escort will now display a warning on the Mission Offer screen.
Increased Mission Sharing range from 100 to 500.

Tutorial

Desert

Set PDA mission grant item for Numbers Game to be unique to avoid duplication.
Fixed bug in Mitchellson's AI that could prevent the SPARC team from reaching level 3 of Stronghold Prison.

Millennium City

Lowered drop rate on “Purple Posse” mission.
“Friends on the Force” is now a group mission.
"Hello Kitty": Fixed a bug where Martha Reece would sometimes run straight to the end of her escort path without being attacked by any enemies.
War on Peace: Fixed a bug where the attacking Lemurians wouldn't attack.

Monster Island

“Raptor Rush” no longer spams Zone chat with wave information. The announcements will show up in Local chat instead.
Fixed multiple issues with the Lost Caves set that is part of Monster Island's new content for Well's Pass.
Updated/Added Waypoints for all new Monster Island missions.
Fixed mission return text and mission structures to flow more logically and to keep directing players to the next objectives.
Updated all doors and spawn points within the Lost Caves.
Removed the repeatable Worm Hunt mission from the Alive version of the Map and corrected/updated the repeatable mission available in the Dead version.
Updated contacts to correctly show the appropriate mission progress text.
Fixed names on UNTIL technicians near Captain Fyodorovitch & Dr. Silverback on Monster Island to display correctly.

Lemuria

Fixed a number of holes in the world geometry.
Fixed a bug that was causing some of the Empyrean constructs in Rastrinfhar's Abyss to attack each other.
Fixed a bug that was causing numerous critters in Rastrinfhar's abyss to spawn as level 36. They will now spawn as level 39.

UNITY

Added new "hunt" missions to UNITY daily tasks, replacing some of the repeats. One of these has been added to each daily batch of UNITY missions, replacing one of the repeated missions.
Fixed a bug with UNITY mission "Cazulon vs Miniature Hero" that was causing it to require a contact turn-in that was not possible.
Fixed a bug that could cause players to receive a nonexistent UNITY mission, "Detonation Eradication".
Added Mission names to the doors for all Patrol and Unity Missions. No more guessing which mission you're going into.

Nemesis

Nemesis drops are now Bind-on-Equip.
Nemesis rewards are now Bind-on-Pickup.
“Bunker Buster” should now complete correctly when the jailed superhero in the PRIMUS weapons R&D facility is freed.

Perks

Fixed an issue where the Perks "Well-to-Do", "Livin' Large", "Deep Pockets", "Money Bags", and "Mad Bling" could get permanently stuck at -1. Players who were affected by this issue will have their counts reset to the amount of Resources they currently own.
Lizardmen Nemesis Minions: Perk now records these minions properly.
Mafia Nemesis Minions : This minion group did not have perks set up for them. KNOWN ISSUE: this group does not have an Icon set yet.
Monster Island Explorer: Perk has been fixed so that it registers when players enter the neighborhoods.
Private Practice: This perk was granting the wrong title. This perk now grants "Private Practice" as it is supposed to.
Vanquished Kigatilik: Perk was set to individual player defeat rather than team which restricted who was awarded the kill and therefore the perk reward.
Vanquished Mechassassin: Perk was set to individual player defeat rather than team which restricted who was awarded the kill and therefore the perk reward. Perk was also looking for this critter but at a Cosmic villain level, which is incorrect. Both issues fixed.
We Are the Champions : Typo corrected. Kinetic is now Kinetik. Mission adjusted such that talking to Kinetik outside of the tutorial will count for the Perk.
PvP Perks : Turned on Progress flags on PvP perks that didn't already have it on. Players will now be able to view their progress.

Crafting

Fixed an issue in the Crafting UI where Enhancements couldn't be selected with the mouse while trying to create a custom item.
Crafting skill level indicators now correctly show max skill level as 400.

Costume Creator/Tailor

The Tailor and Nemesis Editor now default to the basic body & face options, the body & face sliders are still available by selecting the custom buttons.
The Nemesis power hue shifters are now displayed on their appropriate power selection screens, instead of hidden in the mood & stance tab.
Fixed a bug that prevented the use of unlocked costume pieces in the Nemesis Editor.

Hero Games

Hero Games: Lava Temple. Reduced the number of kills required to win a match from 20 to 15.

PROXIMOS AÑADIDOS AL JUEGO

2009-10-04T16:20:00.007+02:00

We’ve got a bunch of long-awaited features coming up, so here’s a little preview of what we’re planning...

Mission Tracking Updates

A handful of new options will be available to players, including setting primary mission waypoints for a group, increasing mission sharing distances, making over 100 more missions shareable amongst a group, and granting “Assist Bonuses” to heroes who help their friends complete a mission they don’t have. Expect these updates to come over the next two weeks or so.

More Missions

UNTIL missions that send you to take down signature villains, bounty hunter missions that reward you for delivering bounties on specific enemy groups, and more missions in Millennium City (level 18) and Rime Woods in Canada (levels 11-13) will fill in more gaps and give you more paths for leveling up. These will be trickling out throughout October, with the first ones up on the Public Test Server within the next week or two.

Power House 2.0

A new room will be added to the Power House for you to test out your powers against actual enemies, giving you a better sense of a power’s usefulness before you take it out into the real world. Powers Trainers will also suggest powers that you may want to add to your builds based on any types you may be missing (such as Block upgrades or Healing powers). Additionally, we’ll be making the area around the Power Trainers a duel-free zone, so that you can purchase new upgrades without any distracting fights around you. You’ll find the new and improved Power House on the Public Test Shard within the next two weeks.

This is just a small taste of the plans we’ve got for the immediate future. We’ve got even more things planned for the second half of October, including the huge Blood Moon event/update coming October 27th. We’ll be revealing more details about additional features coming as the month goes on, so keep checking back for the latest information. Happy October!

.

POWER SET CELESTIAL

2009-10-03T21:45:00.009+02:00

Traducción del Texto por la web championsonline.es

Celestial es un Set de poder basado en un conjunto de Healing / Soporte. Cryptic ha prometido liberar informacion de cada uno de los poderes de forma individual, de momento disfrutad de una mirada al Generador de energía: "Radiance".

Actualización 03/10/09 - Añadidos Rebuke e Imbue.

El poder aun no ha sido oficialmente implementado en el juego, asi que está sujeto a cambios y no es su texto definitivo aun

Radiance

Generador de energia

Genera Energia, Daño Dimensional a Distancia, Cura aliados

Brillantes bolas de fuego dimensional se dañan a tu objetivo,Recupera la vida de tus aliados y daña a tus objetivos.

Click

* Si seleccionas a un enemigo: Daño dimensional
* Si selecciona a un aliado: Curas a tu objetivo
* Genera eneragia
* Si seleccionas a un aliado: Solo se genera energia si se cura daño.

Rebuke

Sin Requerimientos

Daño Dimensional a Distancia Cargado, Cura Cargada

Llama a las fuerzas dimensionales para judgar al objetivo, curando a enemigos e hiriendo a los enemigos.
Toque

* Si el objetivo es un enemigo, provoca daño.
* Si el objetivo es aliado, cura el daño.

Charge

* Incrementa la Cura/Daño y el coste de energia al Cargar.

Imbue

Requiere 1 poder de Celestial o 2 poderes que no sean de Generación de Energia de cualquier rama.

Efecto en la Siguiente Habilidad.

Inbuyendote a ti con energias dimensionales, eres capaz de incrementar la eficacia de tu siguiente poder que uses.

Click

* Incrementa el daño o la cura de la siguiente habilidad que uses.

Avanzadas

* Ilusion - El siguiente poder que uses después de Imbue creara menos Amenaza.

Illumination

Requires 1 power from Celestial or 2 non energy building powers from any framework

Targeted Buff, Targeted Debuff
Illumination places healing energies around your target, aiding your allies in their fight.

Click

If targeting foe: Places Illumination on your target. Any hero attacking the target will receive the Mend buff, healing them over time.
If targeting foe: The debuff has a 5 minute duration.
If targeting ally: Places Illumination on your target. When the affected ally takes damage they will receive the Mend buff, healing them over time.
If targeting ally: The buff has a 30 minute duration.

Advantages

Brilliance - Illumination becomes a toggle that automatically affects targets in a 25 foot sphere around you. The Illumination toggle costs energy while active. The Illumination toggle can affect, at maximum, yourself, one friend, and one enemy every one second.

Conduit

Requires 1 powers from Celestial or 2 non energy building powers from any framework

Maintained Dimensional Damage, Maintained Heal
You become a conduit for dimensional energies, focusing them on your friends or enemies.

Maintain

If targeting foe: Deals dimensional damage to the target
If targeting ally: Heals the target
Chains to nearby targets of the same type who are affected by Illumination
No energy cost if the target is affected by Mend

Advantages

Serenity - A portion of the energy you use to cast Conduit is returned to you if your target is affected by Mend.

Conviction

Requires 1 power from Celestial or 2 non energy building powers from any framework

Self Maximum Health Buff
You are able to temporarily increase your maximum health.

Click

Increases your maximum health for a short time

Advantages

Impudence - Conviction becomes an Active Defense. The power becomes much more powerful but also gains a 90 second cooldown and applies a 30 second cooldown to other Active Defense powers.

Iniquity

Requires 1 power from Celestial or 2 non energy building powers from any framework

Health Transfer
You are the ultimate healer, transferring health from yourself to your target.

Click

Heals target
Deals damage equal to the heal to you

Advantages

Justice - Iniquity can now target up to 5 friends in a cone in front of you. Iniquity is 10% less effective (per target) for each target hit beyond the first.

GALERIA FRIKI

2009-10-03T16:46:00.001+02:00

BLOOD MOON HEROES CAIDOS

2009-10-03T13:20:00.000+02:00

Traducción del Texto de John Layman, guionista de Champions Online por la web championsonline.es

El influjo de la muerte esta creciendo. Los Hombres Lobo recorren furiosos las calles, y los Vampiros emergen de la oscuridad, hambrientos por la sangre de inocentes. Por todo el mundo, desde las calles de Millenium City hasta los más recónditos lugares del mundo, oscuros y retorcidos acontecimientos están pasando. Una Luna Sangrienta ha aparecido en el cielo, y todo el Universo de Champions Online está sintiendo sus misteriosos efectos.
Zombies. Vampiros. Hombres Lobo. Halloween esta llegando, y hemos preparado todo lo posible para llevar todo lo relacionado con esta fiesta macabra al “colorido” mundo de Champions Online. Pero después dimos un buen vistazo y pensamos: “¿Como podemos hacer esto aún mas brutal?”

¿La Respuesta? Superhéroes Zombies. (que nadie se sorprenda si les sale a la mente la saga Marvel Zombies, ya que John Layman participó en ella, concretamente como escritor de Marvel Zombies Vs. Army of Darkness, el enfrentamiento entre los heroes Marvel contra el gran Ash J. Williams, protagonista de la saga Evil Dead).
Los “Porques”, “Comos” y “Dondes” fueron fáciles. Claramente uno de los mayores eventos en la historia de Champions es la Batalla de Detroit, en aquel enfrentamiento que se realizó hace un cuarto de siglo, donde los héroes de esa época se unieron para enfrentarse a la mayor amenaza que el mundo ha conocido: El Supervillano genocida conocido como Doctor Destroyer.
Esa lucha tuvo devastadores y definitivas consecuencias. Detroit fue destruida aquel día, y la gran Millenium City se construyo sobre sus cenizas. Destroyer fue derrotado, presumiblemente muerto (sabemos que recientemente se han encontrado evidencias que hacen pensar que esa noticia era bastante exagerada). Y en la derrota del gran Destroyer muchos bravos y nobles héroes perdieron sus vidas.

Hasta hoy. Hasta la Luna Sangrienta.
Trece de los mayores héroes que el universo haya conocido han vuelto. Muertos Vivientes y esclavizados, sirven al Señor de los Nomuertos, el Nigromante Lich conocido como Takofanes. Y Takofanes solo ha dado una orden: “Matad lo vivo, para que mi ejercito pueda crecer”.
Y del rico tapiz del Lore de Champions, hemos escogido trece de los héroes caídos durante la gran batalla donde murió Detroit y nació Millenium City y pasados a su nueva vida como nomuertos.
Entre ellos esta Vanguard, el superhéroe más poderoso del planeta en su época, ahora convertido en el más poderoso de los zombies.
También esta Radion, una creación del Dr. Destroyer que se volvió contra su maestro, solo para morir a sus manos. Eclipse, que se convertía en una mancha solar. Firefight, que consiguió sus poderes durante un altercado en una fabrica química. Tigre, un mutado por uno de los sueros prototipo del Dr. Moreau. Nimbus, bruja del clima. El mutante Vigil. Strongman. Johnny Hercules. El Increíble Etéreo Grace. Crusher. Flechette. Shadowboxer. Y el Goblin.

Trece de los mayores héroes que el mundo haya conocido. Ahora trece de los mas letales zombies que jamás han caminado sobre la tierra. Y todos sirviendo a una fuerza tan poderosa y malvada que rivaliza con Doctor Destroyer.
Durante la Luna Sangrienta, los valientes héroes del moderno Universo Champions tendrán la oportunidad de enfrentarse cara a cara contra los héroes caídos.
Y después de que eso suceda, podrán probar su nobleza y valentía descendiendo a las criptas de Takofanes, y liberar al fin las cautivas almas de los héroes de las garras de Takofanes.
Por supuesto, queda la pregunta sobre que causa la Luna Sangrienta y que mueve a Takofanes a atacar cuando aparece. Este misterio se resolverá otro día, pero quedan otros puntos. Takofanes advierte de que el Apocalipsis esta llegando, y su embestida nomuerta solo es el comienzo de la gran guerra que engullirá a todo el planeta.
¿Y que es ese Apocalipsis del que se refiere Takofanes? Esta respuesta esta más cerca de lo que crees. (¿Primeros datos de la próxima Issue?)
Disfrutad de la Luna Sangrienta. Disfrutadla… ¡Y haz lo posible por sobrevivir!

Notas del parche del Miercoles 30 de Septiembre

2009-09-30T09:20:00.000+02:00

General

Early improvements to the Market. It's now possible to search beyond the initial results, when there are potentially more items.
Added indicator of the 5 second cooldown between searches.
The change instance buttons are now only enabled for main zone maps.
If your mouse cursor disappears, try running "/SoftwareCursorForce 1".
Builds were improperly switching stacks of items and returning "Inventory full". This has been fixed.
Fixed a number of memory-related crashes.
New Steam achievements! These are not retroactively applied currently, however we are looking into adding the technology to make this possible.
Headshots were occasionally showing a costume other than your own. This has been fixed.
Fixed game preferences not saving on new installations.

User Interface and Chat

Improved resource formatting.
Fixed bugs where several of the submenus in the chat popup menu sometimes appear partially offscreen.
Added arrows to expand/collapse team mission.
Fixed a bug that sometimes made the price of a guild bank tab not appear in the tooltip.
Clicking empty power slots opens the powers UI now ONLY when you are out of combat.
Enabled the super group vault log, which will show a log of the last 500 deposits to and withdraws from the super group vault. Click on the right-most button at the top of the super group vault UI to access it.
Chat channel: As a channel admin, destroying the last channel you are subscribed to will now properly disable the 'leave' and 'admin' buttons in the channel summary.
Added special type-specific background icons for empty slots for all power and item types in main trays and builds UI to clarify what goes where.
Added lightning bolt UI indicator for when you have points to spend at a Power House.
Added target-of-target indicator to UI.
Added role indicator to team frames.
Fixed alignment and clipping issues on the stat readout on characteristic and talent descriptions.
Trade UI is now part of the fixed UI system instead of its own large window.
Activation bars are now resizable; interaction bars/prompts area now sits above pets tray by default on all resolutions.
Added targeted versions of all emotes, so if you emote while targeting someone, it will indicate this in your emote message.
Added a few new emotes (wink, sigh, cry, frown, giggle, nod, facepalm).
Chat - Long lines with multi-byte characters (such as '?') will now wrap properly.
Chat auto-complete now properly completes & replaces multi-word character names.
Chat auto-complete for /tell now includes a list of recent /tell correspondents.
Chat auto-complete is now annotated by color to indicate where player suggestions came from (e.g. team, friend, guild, local, chat, etc.). A textual annotation can also be turned on by going to Chat Settings > Options and checking on "Annotate Auto-Complete".
Using the same emote repeatedly will no longer spam chat text.
Chat text will now replace $player with your name and $target with your target's name. So you can e.g. '/bind y "emote point $$ local Attack $target!"'.
Names will again always appear over heads when selecting "Always" in the HUD options.
Auction UI now uses a static cooldown, meaning you won't see crazy cooldowns like 200 seconds.

Powers

Martial Arts powers: Inexorable Tides: These power now gain bonus damage from the player's Strength (up to +20%), the same as all other melee powers. As a reminder, this bonus is cumulative and not related to the bonus from your Characteristic Focuses.
A number of changes to pets have been made. All pets attempt to follow with 8’ of their owner. Read on for more changes.
Combat Pets: Attack Mode: Critters attack the player’s target and will continue to do so until the target is dead. Then they will immediately target the player’s current target and use it as their own target and so on. If the player has no attack target the critter returns to the player. Players can cause the pets to switch targets at any time by pressing the attack button again. Targets for critters can only be set out to 150’ from the owner.
Combat Pets: Assist Mode: If the player initiates combat, critters set their attack target to be the player’s target and attack. If the player (or critters) are attacked first, the critters use default aggro rules. Critters return to the player after combat has ended.
Combat Pets: Passive Mode: Pets follow the player and never enter combat.
Combat Pets: Stay Mode: Critters stop following the player and do not enter combat if the player does. If the critter takes damage it will enter combat. If this causes the critter to move more than 100’ from the spot it was told to stay, it will return to the spot after combat. Critters despawn if the player moves more than 200’ from the critter.
Follow response time improved for pets. Pets also have collision with their owners.
Fixed bug with Frenzy command for wolf pets that would cause them to not respond if one wolf dies.
Fixed a case where a long range target could causes turrets in Assist mode to not fire.
Healing Drones: Attack Mode: If player is targeting a friendly, that friendly will be used as the critter’s target. If targeting an enemy, the critter will use the enemy’s target as its own target. Drones will heal this target until they are over 90% health and then will return to the owner. Drones will not interrupt their healing to aid the player if their owner is damaged. Drones also do not switch targets if the enemy’s target changes. Pressing Attack again will update the target.
Healing Drones: Assist Mode: Drones will heal the owner if below 90% health. If above 90%, drones will attempt to heal any allies within 50’ of the owner. If the owner moves outside of 50’, the drones will break off of their healing and follow the owner. If the owner drops below 90% health while healing an ally, the drones will switch to target their owner.
Healing Drones: Passive Mode: Drones follow the player and do not heal.
Healing Drones: Stay Mode: Critters remain stationary and attempt to heal any allies below 90% health within 12’ (the range of the healing beam), giving preference to their owner. Drones despawn if the owner moves over 200’ away from them.
Common: Block: Now properly reduces your movement speed while flying or swinging.

Archery

Quarry: Updated Quarry's description to indicate that it does have ranks and what ranking it up does: "Increasing the rank of Quarry increases the amount that the Quarry buff reduces the energy cost of all of your powers by."

Darkness

Dark Transfusion: Health damage from this power is no longer considered damage, and therefore cannot be prevented or avoided.

Fire

Flashfires damage increased a bit.

Gadgeteering

Attack Toys: Known Issue: Cloned toys sometime hesitate to enter combat when first summoned.

Ice

The Ice Cage component of the Chill effect now procs for high ranking enemies, such as Legendary Villains. They're too powerful to actually be contained by it, but it may be shattered as normal for bonus damage.
Ice Sheath is now on the same shared cooldown as the other Active Offenses (Fire Sheath, etc).

Might

Clobber: Sucker Punch: Can no longer interrupt Super Villains, Legendary Villains, or Cosmic Villains.
Defensive Combo: The way this power applies the Defiance buff has been changed. It will no longer stack the Defiance buff, instead, it will apply 1 stack of Defiance if no stack currently exists, or refresh any number of existing applications of Defiance.
Defensive Combo: Surge of Strength has been changed to function the same way, and now guarantees an application or refresh of Defiant on every swing.

Munitions

Power Replace: Energy Pistol: Can no longer interrupt Super Villains, Legendary Villains, or Cosmic Villains.
Power Replace: Energy Sniper Rifle: Can no longer interrupt Super Villains, Legendary Villains, or Cosmic Villains.

Power Armor

Chest Beam: Corrected rank 2 and 3 descriptions for Chest Beam. Previously these descriptions were indicating Chest Beam was a column power when it was a single target power only.
Gauntlet Chainsaw: Fixed a bug preventing it from scaling with Strength, as all Melee powers do.
Power Gauntlet: Can no longer interrupt Super Villains, Legendary Villains, or Cosmic Villains.

Single Blade

Scything Blade: Swallow Tail Cut: This advantage now affects Master Villains (in addition to players, henchmen, and villains). Additionally, the bleed inflicted by this advantage may now be Ruptured (such as with Reaper's Embrace), though doing so only deals normal bleed damage, not a percentage of the target's life.
Dragon's Bite: Attack now does damage in two small (dare I say “bite sized”?) chunks. The actual damage per attack is unchanged; this is a purely cosmetic change.
Dragon's Bite: Cull the Weak: This advantage now deals +30% damage (up from +20%) to enemies that are at 25% or lower health (up from 20%). This bonus damage is now folded into the attack's base damage, instead of appearing as a distinct damage amount. This advantage also inflicts instant kills on Henchmen and Villains that are at 25% or lower health (up from 20%). It no longer inflicts instant kills on players, but it does inflict the bonus 30% damage.

Sorcery

Skarn's Bane no longer interrupted by damage (actually, this time).

Unarmed

Lightning Reflexes - Aura for Lightning Reflexes power can now have its color customized.

Critters

After careful consideration, and much consultation with Medusa, Psimon has come to the conclusion that it would be better tactics for him to use his power, Reflective Psionic Shield, to protect HIMSELF, rather than his enemies. As an act of cross - villain good will, he has passed this idea on to the VIPER Psionic Directors.
Chimera: Attacks are no longer interruptable. Now has a 100ft range attack.

Devices

Changed duration on Psionic Storm power used by the Psi Storm Crystal so that it correctly matches the duration of the Storm and shows you the actual range of damage pulses, not what it could get up to at 1000 seconds (not actually possible with the 30 second duration of the item).

Missions/Environments

Patrol Missions now drop items as loot rather than inserting them directly into your inventory.
Add subtitles to all flyover cutscenes.

Tutorial

Updated lighting (made it more neutral, like character creator).
Non-shareable missions can now be set to the Primary Mission.
When a Primary Mission is set, teammates who don't have the mission will see the objectives in their mission tracker and will see the waypoints for that mission.
When a Primary Mission is set, all teammates will only see the waypoints of the furthest-behind team member for that mission.
You can now see the mission progress of your teammates next to their portraits. If a primary mission is set, this shows the primary mission. Otherwise, it shows the last mission that made progress on.
Most mission rewards should now be equippable regardless of level so that if you can complete the mission you can equip the reward.
Defender was given a new expression to allow his Voice Over to originate from his position even while moving!

Desert

Deadbeat now correctly responds to players that are outside his level range.
The Uranium Strapped Irradiates in the Desert Crisis correctly re-enter combat after a player leaves the combat radius and a new or same player enters the combat radius while the first bomb is still counting down.

Millennium City

My Lost Foot: Fixed another bug that could cause Xiress to get stuck or fail to spawn.
Waterfront Watcher: Fixed another bug that could cause James Harmon to become unresponsive.
"Jailbreak" - changed the ringleaders to run to a point when they spawn so that they are separated from one another. Also made the critters around the reward bag despawn when the mission is completed.
"Discord and Harmony": Cleans itself up after the mission.
Xiress's escort mission will clear correctly on completion so that others can play.
"Hyperborean Warding": Fixed an issue preventing more than one player from completing the mission.

Monster Island

A large amount of new content has been added to Monster Island, including new missions, instances, and rewards.
Burden of Beastmen: changed the cooldown on the open mission to be 30 min instead of 10.
Swine's Secret: Some of the maps were on top of throwable tables, so the player was prompted to throw the table before picking up the map. The tables are no longer throwable.

Nemesis

Players should no longer have issues when trying to complete the Nemesis mission, Decrowning the Aegir.
Fixed a bug preventing the creation of a Nemesis with Sorcery powers.
Violent Majority: The bug with the open mission not updating properly when the player destroys the door debris before freeing the receptionist has been fixed.
"Fool's Gold": Field Researcher Viera should have less issues patrollling. The proper Nemesis minions should also spawn correctly now.
Rocket Hawk and Lady Rocket Hawk were way too strong in the Volcanic Lair. Now you'll actually have to try to beat your Nemesis instead of letting them do the work.
Fixed issue with Greater Lava Beast in the Volcanic Lair that was preventing players from continuing through the mission.
"Bunker Buster" should now complete correctly.
"Bait and Switch" should now update Draysha Canisters properly.

Crafting

Dimensional Alliance Imbuement no longer generates error message when player attempts to learn it.
Secondary Upgrades economic/research value reduced to 25% to match their deconstruction component values and relative value to Primaries.
Custom crafting blueprints will now say that they are custom along with what specialization they are.
Fixed bug where Timeless enhancement was requiring Arms components instead of Mysticism components.

Costume Creator/Tailor

Changing genders will no longer clear the costume undo history.

Hero Games

Hero Games: Increased Hero Games XP and Acclaim rewards for all Hero Games matches (UTC, BASH, and Apocalypse).
Hero Games matches now give more XP when games last longer (30-minute scenario games now give more XP than 10-minute arena matches). HOWEVER, you'll get more XP per hour if you win your current match and start another than if you drag it out. AFK players still receive no rewards.
Stronghold Apocalypse: Added pre-game respawn lobbies to Stronghold: Apocalypse, to prevent spawn camping.

Chat con Cryptic

2009-09-28T16:49:00.002+02:00

Transcripcion del chat que mantuvo la gente de Cryptic con jugadores el dia 24 de Septiembre:

[14:03] <~Cryptic_Daeke> Hello everyone! Thanks so much for joining us today!

[14:03] <~Cryptic_Daeke> We've got a bunch of questions from you, so let's do some quick introductions and then hop right into it.

[14:03] <~Cryptic_Daeke> I'm David Bass, Community Representative.

[14:04] <~Cryptic_Daeke> And apparently I'm the only one here.

[14:04] <+Cryptic_Balseraph> Brian Urbanek, Systems Team

[14:04] <+Chronomancer> Welcome to the chat, everyone! Bill Roper, here - Executive Producer and bender of time.

[14:04] <+Cryptic_Arkayne> Hey folks, I'm Randy Mosiondz, Lead Designer and Keeper of Arcane Lore

[14:04] <+Cryptic_Antiproton> hey all, Cormac Russell, Rewards System Designer and forum junkie

[14:04] <~Cryptic_Daeke> If you have questions to ask during the chat, join #COquestions and submit them in chat. If you want to talk during the chat, go over to #COchat

[14:05] <~Cryptic_Daeke> Okay! Let's get started.

[14:05] <~Cryptic_Daeke> Silatt: What errors in your process have you identified that lead to allowing the September 22 patch to go live despite potentially game-breaking bugs? What steps are you taking to better test future patches and make sure that such an error is not repeated?

[14:05] <~Cryptic_Daeke> How will you better involve the public testers that were able to identify issues before this patch went live and were largely ignored? Why was this patch rushed with minimal time to test on the public test server?

[14:06] <+Chronomancer> We've been running at top speed to address the issues and desires that players have expressed.

[14:06] <+Chronomancer> The patch we pushed on the 22nd was intended to explicitly get the economy fixes out to players to address the retcons cost concerns and fix the overall economy model of the game. This happened at the same time, however, we were transitioning to using the new Public Test Shard and the new PTS forums.

[14:07] <+Chronomancer> in our rush to get the economy fixes in, we missed the other issues. The players did a great job of letting us know what was wrong with the build, but we didn't have our devs and testers moved over to looking at overall issues yet - we were really focused on the economy changes.

[14:07] <+Chronomancer> Moving forward, we're not only spending more time on the PTS forums, but we're also going to be slowing down a bit with changes to keep the quality and flow of information to the players high.

[14:08] <~COquestionbot> Question: Can we expect to see disadvantages like in the pnp game - ie. take a disadvantage to earn some development points? It'd be nice to see my ice person actually weaker to fire.

[14:08] <+Cryptic_Antiproton> Disadvantages are unlikely, they work MUCH better with a human GM who can tailor threats specifically to their players, as opposed to a computer environment where the players can simply choose to avoid things they are weak to.

[14:08] <+Cryptic_Antiproton> Also it makes balancing powerful threats harder as something that is meant to be threatening to everybody can become overwhelming for a player who has a weakness to their dangerous powers.

[14:08] <+Cryptic_Antiproton> A human GM can use the disads to make interesting encounters, because they hand craft everything to their players, and can fudge in their favor as necessary too. In an MMO the encounters are shared across every single player and build.

[14:08] <+Cryptic_Antiproton> so basically, the end up being either really unfun roadblock character gimping

[14:09] <+Cryptic_Antiproton> or min/max abusable systems

[14:10] <~Cryptic_Daeke> Shiroi98: Why the decision to cap damage at 32% from superstats? The game is hard as it is already, even if the mob damage was apparently decreased.

[14:11] <+Cryptic_Antiproton> That was what our spreadsheets were built with as the max value for balancing, it was always intended as a soft cap, but due to an error I made with crafting, we needed to put the hardcap in now rather than being able to wait for the tech for doing it as a softcap.

[14:11] <+Cryptic_Antiproton> Balseraph built the game around certain assumptions as to how high the bonuses from SuperStats could go, the hardcap for now and the softcap later is directly mapped to that intended limit

[14:12] <~COquestionbot> Is there going to be an adjustment of threat generated by healing powers and support and tank roles be rewarded for doing their job in Open Missions in any point in the future?

[14:12] <+Cryptic_Balseraph> Healing Threat - There are several angles to this. First: Right now on live, heals generate threats against EVERY enemy in range. What we're experimenting with internally is this: First, heals only generate threat relative to the threat the person you're healing has. That means that healing the tank only puts threat on enemies that already hate the tank; or,

[14:12] <+Cryptic_Balseraph> healing doesn't make much threat at all vs. adds or accidental pulls.

[14:12] <+Cryptic_Balseraph> Next, every enemy attacking a healer reduces that player's healing threat. Here's an example of what we want to happen (please forgive the assumption of "traditional" roles; they make examples easier). The tank has three people beating on her. The healer isn't careful, and does heavy overhealing (which, yes, we WANT to count for your threat! Keeps healers on

[14:12] <+Cryptic_Balseraph> their toes. =)) and pulls aggro. Rather than all of the enemies running to the healer, only one enemy, starting from the lowest ranked (henchman before villain, etc.) will go after the tank. The healer's threat from healing is reduced as long as that enemy is on the healer. If the healer defeats that enemy, their threat goes back up, and if the tank isn't ho

[14:13] <+Cryptic_Balseraph> isn't holding aggro, another enemy may break off at that point.

[14:13] <+Cryptic_Balseraph> This should make the battlefield feel very fluid, but still be more predictable than it is now. One of the core ideas of Champions is that everyone is a Hero; there are no "pure" support "classes", and that everyone should be able to easily dispatch a stray Henchman, and feel powerful and heroic defending themselves.

[14:13] <~Cryptic_Daeke> Captain_Skyfire: What is Cryptic's stance on group 'roles' such as tanking and support. Do you want these to be pronounced in teams or are they just options that players aren't forced to use?

[14:14] <+Chronomancer> It will depend on the content, and overall the team will be more effective if they can use the roles. If one player is holding the attention of the really dangerous enemies, the team will benefit as a whole if they are in the Protector role (defense) and all the heroes who only have henchmen attacking them are in Avenger (offense) or Sentinal (support).

[14:14] <+Chronomancer> If your team just goes in for mass blasting and every player is expected to take care of themselves, Guardian (balanced) is a reasonable choice, so it basically comes down to playstyles and content. Overall don't be surprised if you find you need to use your roles effectively - they aren't classes and you can switch them as needed during a play session.

[14:15] <~Cryptic_Daeke> GreySky: Will we see a point where using Offensive passives will be possible soloing? I would love to try them, but without defence, it's way to hard.

[14:15] <+Chronomancer> Our examination of our data shows that players can use Offensive Passives successfully while soloing on Live, though many are also using Defensive Passives, or none at all. Having said that, we are definitely looking at the relative powers of all the passives and will be paying special atention to offensive passives.

[14:15] <~COquestionbot> I got a question...are there going to be more quests added at 39-40?

[14:15] <+Cryptic_Arkayne> We are looking at adding more content across the board. On the technical side we've got a bunch of new tools for creating content quickly, especially instanced maps. You can expect to see a constant flow of new missions and story arcs throughout the game, in addition to our larger-scale expansions.

[14:17] <~Cryptic_Daeke> Spitfire5792: Should we expect anything new for supergroups such as a supergroup base? Or friendly sparring between supergroups?

[14:18] <+Chronomancer> We have a long list of desires for supergroups that include things like bases / headquarters. But we first want to develop a system that encourages supergroup play by giving these large groups of heroes goals with rewards. I'd also love to come up with a way for the biggest and best to have persistent bases in the game world that everyone can see.

[14:18] <~COquestionbot> Are there any plans to reward healing and tanking in open missions?

[14:18] <+Cryptic_Arkayne> We'd looking into ways to evaluate healing and tanking in Open Missions so they can be factored into contributions for rewards. It's in the queue for programming but we don't have an ETA for that yet.

[14:18] <~COquestionbot> Question: Will there ever be a way to sort inventory?

[14:19] <+Cryptic_Antiproton> It is definitely on the list of features we want. UI Guru has a big pile of improvements he is working on, so we'll hopefully get to it soon.

[14:19] <+Cryptic_Antiproton> UI Guru and his team are great, they are making steady improvements to the UI, and I

[14:19] <+Cryptic_Antiproton> am always asking them for better features for inventory and crafting. :)

[14:20] <~COquestionbot> I might as well ask a hybrid Crafting/Unity question: Are the parties involved at work on adding in the Unity HQ crafting tables where we use our Qliphotic essence?

[14:20] <~COquestionbot> For that matter, what can we expect from Unity in the near future, if only once more players have reached the 40 mark?

[14:20] <+Cryptic_Antiproton> Yes, I've got more UNITY Crafting on my list, there will be Blueprints going in to use the Qliphotic Essences.

[14:20] <+Cryptic_Antiproton> You won't use special crafting stations, it will work at any of the existing ones, though you will need to acquire the Blueprints from the UNITY activities.

[14:22] <~COquestionbot> Will we see any new community tools that support guilds?

[14:22] <~Cryptic_Daeke> We've got some great ideas planned for tools we'd like to provide Supergroups with in the future. Currently, our focus is on stabilizing the game and letting things settle down after launch, but we're always thinking ten steps ahead to determine what tools would be useful to the community.

[14:22] <~Cryptic_Daeke> Make sure you keep using the Suggestions Forum, because we're always looking through it for ideas and suggestions from you guys.

[14:23] <~Cryptic_Daeke> Globex: What can we expect on the current status of certain powers that yield little or no benefit and have gone untouched? Such abilities like: The Aspects (Dragon, Inferno, or Celestial), and Cloud of Flies? Will these be buffed and yield more benefits or will they remain unchanged and just be left to incure virtual dust?

[14:23] <+Chronomancer> We have just gained an amazing data tool that allows us to see what powers every single hero in the game is using. This will allow us to very specifically address powers that are below the curve, and those that are will be increased in effectiveness.

[14:24] <+Chronomancer> If they are appropriately powered but nobody is taking them, that gets more complicated. Aspects and Foci are of things that need to be buffed. We want every power to be desirable so that players are at least considering taking it. They may be specialized and only appeal to a small subset of builds, but there needs to be some use for them.

[14:24] <~Cryptic_Daeke> (Remember, if you have questions to submit, head over to #COquestions and type them into chat. Or if you want to discuss the chat, join #COchat)

[14:26] <~COquestionbot> Question: When can we buy more character slots?

[14:27] <+Chronomancer> We'll be expanding what players can get through the C-Store next month, and that will include the ability to add more character slots to your account. We're still implementing ways for players to earn them, but I don't have the specifics for you - tech and design haven't synced up yet.

[14:28] <~COquestionbot> Why are there no new inventions in crafting after you reach skill level 300? Is this intentional, or just lack of content? Will it be fixed?

[14:28] <+Cryptic_Antiproton> There are crafting Blueprints all the way up to skill level 400 at the moment, you need to go visit your specialty trainer. For that matter, from 200-300 there are some Blueprints that you need to visit the specialty trainer to learn.

[14:28] <~COquestionbot> What is the ETA on the Danger Room for the Powerhouse?

[14:28] <+Cryptic_Arkayne> We're working on Powerhouse 2.0 right now. This will include the "no-duel" power selection/retcon area, testing areas, and the "danger-room" style test versus opponents. Barring any complications and feedback from the PTS we're hoping to get it out within the month.

[14:29] <~Cryptic_Daeke> Thewolph: What is the process from start to finish of how a power change comes about? Who initiates the idea? Is it based solely on lots of number crunching? Player "suggestions"? A combination of the two? My assumption would be a combination of the two, but I am not in the business and can't say for sure.

[14:30] <+Chronomancer> Yes, it's definitely a combination of the two. The powers team gets feedback from other designers, reports from CS about issues on the forums and bug reports from players, reads the forums directly and discusses hot issues, and gets lots of detailed bug reports from QA.

[14:30] <+Chronomancer> In short, number crunching plus lots of reading and talking. Every forum thread is useful feedback, and even more important to us is every bug report that gets submitted with /bug.

[14:31] <+Cryptic_Antiproton> The powers team spends a lot of time discussing all those things to decide what we are going to be working on.

[14:31] <~COquestionbot> Question: Are there plans to expand any of the current power sets (ie additional powers)

[14:31] <+Cryptic_Balseraph> Expanding the power sets: Yes, both in breadth and depth. What we wanted to make sure we had for launch was a wide variety of "bread and butter" powers, with a few flavor powers. Powers going forward for existing sets will generally be one of three types: special purpose powers that accentuate a power set's unique properties, powers that allow two very

[14:31] <+Cryptic_Balseraph> flavored sets to cross over more effectively, and maybe a few high cooldown, high cost mega attacks. It's important to note, however, that tuning and balancing the EXISTING powers is definitely our primary goal, so extra lower tier power and Teir 4 powers are a bit away. =)

[14:32] <~Cryptic_Daeke> Reminder! If you have questions, do not PM any of us. Instead, go over to #COquestions and type your question in chat.

[14:33] <~Cryptic_Daeke> We won't actually be taking questions except through that chat channel.

[14:33] <~Cryptic_Daeke> I know melee is tuned to do higher and more efficient DPS, but melee builds really need to have better burst damage than ranged attacks. This game is extremely dynamic and mobile causing melee up time to be quite low. Charged attacks on a melee character are quite a pain due to dynamic combat, notably the extra long charge on haymaker.

[14:33] <~Cryptic_Daeke> Perhaps a different mechanic is in order, such as building up a secondary resource alongside energy in order to power the big attacks?

[14:34] <+Chronomancer> In PVE this is mostly not an issue. While enemies moving to range at just the wrong (or right if you look at it from their point of view) time can be frustrating, overall the higher DPS once you get in close - especially with judicious use of terrain - can be highly effective.

[14:34] <+Chronomancer> For PVP we've tried to address it with abilities to root and control, and we certainly want it to be a viable option. There are some killer Might-based PVP builds, but as with all of the power sets, we'll continue to tune and tweak.

[14:35] <~COquestionbot> I like the grond look, is there any chance you will add a feature for four arms on a hero?

[14:35] <+Chronomancer> We would have create a special and specific animation rig and costume set to be used with a four-armed look, so while it would be VERY cool, we can't put this into the costume creation system without a lot of work.

[14:36] <~Cryptic_Daeke> We'll be right back after a word from these sponsors. Foxbat TV: Your source for everything Foxbat.

[14:36] <~COquestionbot> Any plans to add epic unlockable sets to the game once a player hits 40?

[14:37] <+Cryptic_Antiproton> Yes, we're going to be adding item sets, with possibly some interesting new wrinkles as well.

[14:37] <+Cryptic_Antiproton> the intention is to make sure there are interesting things to accomplish, as well as enough time to enjoy what you've done to improve your character.

[14:37] <~COquestionbot> QUESTION: Are World Events a large portion of your planned content, if do they revolve primarily around real world holidays or does the Champions Universe get its own unique Celebrations?

[14:38] <+Cryptic_Arkayne> A lot of the events we'll be having in CO coincide with real-world holidays, but we're also considering events that are not linked to any special holiday but are just cool comic-book events. How cool would it be to have the Lemurians attack Millennium City? That sort of thing.

[14:39] <~COquestionbot> Question: What can we expect from the Celestial power set ? What makes the power set stand out ?

[14:39] <+Cryptic_Balseraph> Celestial: The Celestial set is primarily a healing / boosting / support set... with a twist. Basically, every power is dual use depending on ~stuff~, like who you're targeting. It sacrifices some efficiency for its flexibility, but it puts a great breadth of options at your fingers and does amazing things for skilled players. This set is undergoing a lot of

[14:39] <+Cryptic_Balseraph> testing and review right now, so I really don't want to talk about it much more. (oh, and it looks A - MAZ - ING)

[14:39] <+Cryptic_Antiproton> yeah, those are pretty effects. :)

[14:40] <~COquestionbot> Question: The Tutorial might be the part of the game least enjoyed by players, will we see an update of the Tutorial?

[14:40] <+Chronomancer> I think the tutorial kicks ass the first time or two you play through it. The issue we see most frequently is that players want to be able to skip it once they've gong through it once.

[14:40] <+Chronomancer> We're currently in process on putting that in place, but of course it's always more complicated than you'd imagine. We have to make your character level 5, create a starter set of equipment for each power set that you can get, and move you to a new map that we have to build which is basically a "starter" powerhouse that then puts you into Desert or Canada.

[14:41] <+Cryptic_Antiproton> Yeah, I've had a lot of fun doing the tutorial a number of times on my new characters, but obviously after enough times folks can want to skip it.

[14:41] <+Cryptic_Antiproton> I definitely wouldn't agree that it is least enjoyed, in general we get good feedback on the tutorial. Aside from the beacons... :)

[14:42] <~Cryptic_Daeke> So, we sort of caught up on our backlog so bear with us for a minute.

[14:43] <~Cryptic_Daeke> In the meantime, make sure you stick around until the very end of chat, because we have a special prize waiting for one lucky attendee :)

[14:44] <~COquestionbot> Will there be a visible benifit to teaming over soloing other then just getting crap done faster?

[14:45] <+Chronomancer> We're working on a lot of enhancements to the teaming system, both in how we share information amongst players that are sharing missions, and on actual mission-sharing mechanics.

[14:45] <+Chronomancer> It's *slightly* too early to talk about the big technology change we're working on in the next week or so, but it will greatly increase the fun and benefits to teaming.

[14:45] <+Chronomancer> I know this is a bit of a tease, but it's something we haven't really seen in an MMO before and I want to be sure we have it in and working before I detail out how it works.

[14:46] <~COquestionbot> 6.5% chance of doing something at the cost of 30 or 70 attribute points is totally not worth it, even with the new 32% cap, will you guys be doing something about the nerfiness of power replacement items soon?

[14:46] <+Cryptic_Balseraph> The softcaps I'm working on (that Antiproton discussed earlier) will address that; my explicit goal and desire for stats is this: Every stat should be good for everyone, period. The choice of which stats you take should depend on your chosen play style, not "what's the most effective build". We'll be dramatically improving the payoff for low and medium values

[14:47] <~COquestionbot> That was from Satelite6

[14:47] <+Cryptic_Balseraph> (but applying diminishing return). To give you an idea of where things will end up, whatever stat value gives you +30% damage is the targeted balance point. Stat values lower than that will get more valuable. The payoff for Stat values higher than that will be diminished. Tuning power replaces is (currently) the next major item balance step after that.

[14:47] <~COquestionbot> <--xAJx> Q. Are there any futher plans to make the bank storage bigger? I am taking over the storage in the SG bank atm, and getting hasslehoff for it!

[14:47] <+Chronomancer> Hmmmm... if you can't already exchange resources for more bank slots, I think that's a bug. We'll track that down after the chat.

[14:48] <~Cryptic_Daeke> Ladies and gentlemen, do NOT PM any of us (or the bot). If you have questions for the chat, please head over to #COquestions and type them in chat.

[14:49] <~COquestionbot> Hello, can you give me some sense of what the vision is for linking chains of mobs when I'm in a group of more than 2 heroes.

[14:49] <~COquestionbot> Currently, if I attack a group of 2 mobs with three heroes in an open area, I'll wind up fighting for liek 15 minutes the entire zone.

[14:49] <~COquestionbot> Is this the vision of mobs getting backup? Additionally, I hardly see it as reasonable for a powerful villins like Black Mist to run for help. Is that going to be tweaked a bit

[14:49] <+Cryptic_Arkayne> The Reinforcement system is intended to provide a challenge for larger groups in persistent world areas. Just like heroes team up to take on greater threats, so do villains. Usually there's a "tell" associated with Reinforcements, like a guy running off saying, "I'm going to go for help!" If you stop him, he doesn't pull the next group of villains.

[14:50] <+Cryptic_Arkayne> We're looking at making a few tweaks to Reinforcements, including varying types of Reinfocement backup.

[14:50] <~COquestionbot> Question: Will Foxbat be appearing in any new mission and stuff :3 he is awesome

[14:50] <+Chronomancer> Speaking as the voice of Foxbat, you can damn well bet the greatest and most gastronmically conscious of all villains will be featured in upcomign content. He's the fabulous Foxbat!

[14:51] <+Chronomancer> Say it with me, people: FOXBAT! FOXBAT! FOXBAT!

[14:51] <~COquestionbot> Question: What is the benefit of purchasing a crystal for the 5man lairs for unity merits? Currently you only get 8 merits if you kill the final boss which is only 2 more then if you sell the key fragments for merits.

[14:51] <~COquestionbot> With the risk of not completing the mission do you not agree you should get a few more merits for the Lair then currently (maybe 4 or 5 for the sub boss you meet half way?)

[14:52] <+Cryptic_Antiproton> Um, yes, you are supposed to be getting 40 for completing it, I'll go and check on that after the chat.

[14:52] <+Cryptic_Antiproton> In general if you see strange stuff in game where the rewards seem off, /bug it, please! :)

[14:53] <~Cryptic_Daeke> Dum dee dum. One moment, please.

[14:53] <~Cryptic_Daeke>

[14:54] <~COquestionbot> Question: Are you intending to keep changing skills or do you think adding more skills would be better for maintaining the enjoyment of your customers?

[14:55] <+Chronomancer> We're going to be both looking at existing powers and making new ones. I think to address the needs and desires of the players, we need to get the powers in the game fixed and fun, and then make more!

[14:55] <~Cryptic_Daeke> Remember, stick around for a chance to win a prize at the end of the chat :)

[14:55] <~Cryptic_Daeke> 5 minutes left, folks!

[14:55] <+Chronomancer> Ooooo! A prize!

[14:56] <~COquestionbot> how about adding a difficulty selection instances some of us wants to be able to have a bit harder game...

[14:56] <+Cryptic_Arkayne> Yah, we've been talking about Difficulty sliders for instances. Lot's of people have requested "epic" versions of instances for bigger challenges and rewards. We've also been discussing lower-power versions of the 5-man Lairs so smaller teams can take them on.

[14:58] <~COquestionbot> WebGuest81 Will there ever be improvements to the chat system?

[14:58] <~COquestionbot> For example, making the different channels "sticky" when you type in them, shortening common commands like "/team" to "/t", putting numbers on custom channels like "/1" etc.?

[14:59] <+Chronomancer> Yes. We have along list of things we want to do, but it's all a matter of time and resources. Better in game communication is in the queue, I just don't have a specific time frame.

[14:59] <~Cryptic_Daeke> We've got time for one more question. Stick around after it for a chance to win a special prize!

[14:59] <~COquestionbot> Last question - Question: Is there any plans to rebalance the defensive passives up to an equal level? Anyone with both a regen character and a PFF character will know what I mean.

[14:59] <+Cryptic_Balseraph> Defensive passives - Of *course* we want them all to feel equally desireable. Mathematically, they ARE all balanced... given certain narrow assumptions. In practice and in the real world, those assumptions don't hold up as well as they do in development and practice. I agree with your assessment that, currently, Regeneration is just easier to work with than

[15:00] <+Cryptic_Balseraph> the others, particularly given how well it works with Block. Assuming we want them to actually FEEL different from each other (and you all do still want that, right?) making different defenses that function differently in different circumstances AND are balanced... well, it's going to take some work, and we'll be asking you to jump on the PTS and help us out

[15:00] <+Cryptic_Balseraph> in testing them as we iterate on them. I will say, though, that making the Offensive passives (and the Aspects, and the Focuses) more appealing is a much higher priority.

[15:01] <~Cryptic_Daeke> And with that, we're done! Thanks so much for joining us! Before we go, we're going to ask one trivia question. The first person to answer it will win the Limited Edition Dr. Destroyer action figure in-game. (The one that was given out at PAX)

[15:01] <~Cryptic_Daeke> Well, first to answer it CORRECTLY.

[15:01] <~Cryptic_Daeke> Ready?

[15:01] <~Cryptic_Daeke> Arkayne will be doing the honors :)

[15:01] <+Cryptic_Arkayne> What famous siblings in the Champions Universe were raised in a witch coven?

[15:01] pie

[15:01] -m

[15:01] witchcraft

[15:01] Witchcraft

[15:01] talisman and witchcraft

[15:01] Witchcraft

[15:01] Talisman

[15:01] Talisman and Witchcraft

[15:01] Witchcraft

[15:01] click and clack

[15:01] Witchcraft

[15:01] Which craft

[15:01] witchcraft tialisman

[15:01] witchcrat and that one girl

[15:01] Talisman withccratgg

[15:01] talis and witch

[15:01] Witchcraft and talisman

[15:01] talisman and witchcraft

[15:01] Witchcraft and talisman

[15:01] witch craft and talsima

[15:01] Witchcraft, Talisman

[15:01] witchcraftand talisman

[15:01] withccraft

[15:01] witchcraft talisman

[15:01] talisman and witchcragt

[15:01] Talisman and Witchcraft

[15:01] Witchcraft/talisman

[15:01] witch craft and her sister >.<

[15:01] Witchcraft and talisman

[15:01] Witchcraft Tailsiman

[15:01] Talisman and witchfire

[15:01] ghostwiddow

[15:01] witchcraft

[15:01] Witchraft and Talisman

[15:01] witchcrat

[15:01] Scarlet and Witchcraft

[15:01] <[BOK]Whitethorn> Witchrdaft and Talisman

[15:01] Talisman and Witchcraft

[15:01] Gahahah

[15:01] and talisman

[15:01] witchcraft and talisman

[15:01] me

[15:01] Witchcraft and talismna

[15:01] lol

[15:01] omg people

[15:01] and talisman

[15:02] witchcraft and talisman

[15:02] oh geez....

[15:02] hehe

[15:02] Witchcraft and Talisman

[15:02] LMAO

[15:02] lol

[15:02] lol holy spamppers

[15:02] spam

[15:02] 0_0

[15:02] talisman and witchcraft

[15:02] holy jesus

[15:02] lol

[15:02] i suck at typing

[15:02] bah

[15:02] wow

[15:02] sinister and witchcraft

[15:02] <~Cryptic_Daeke> Theik wins!

CRAFTING FOCUSES

2009-09-27T20:15:00.001+02:00

Arms
Utility Major - END, EGO, INT
Utility Minor - CON, END, EGO
Defense Major - CON
Defense Minor - STR, DEX, REC
Offense Major - STR, DEX, REC
Offense Minor - CON, STR, DEX

Mysticism
Utility Major - EGO, INT, END
Utility Minor - EGO, PRE, INT
Defense Major - PRE
Defense Minor - EGO, END, INT
Offense Major - REC, DEX, STR
Offense Minor - PRE, REC, STR

Science
Utility Major - INT, END, EGO
Utility Minor - INT, END, CON
Defense Major - PRE/CON
Defense Minor - INT, END, EGO
Offense Major - DEX, REC, STR
Offense Minor - REC, DEX, CON

ROLES

2009-09-27T12:06:00.000+02:00

Guardian (Balanced)

* Standard Damage
* Standard Bonus Hit Points
* Potency of Healing powers are standard
* Potency of Hold and Root powers are standard
* Resistance to Hold and Root powers are standard
* Power decays at normal rate
* Energy generated when blocking incoming attacks is standard
* Standard Threat generation
* 1 Versatile Passive slot

Avenger (Offense)

* + All damage is increased by 20%
* - Bonus Hit Points are reduced by 50%
* - Potency of Healing powers and effects are reduced by 20%
* - Potency of Hold and Root powers are reduced by 20%
* - Resistance to Hold and Root powers are reduced by 20%.
* + Power decays at 50% normal rate
* - No energy generated when blocking incoming attacks
* Standard Threat generation
* 1 Offensive Passive Slot

Sentinel (Defense)

* Standard Damage
* + Bonus Hit Points are increased by 25%
* Potency of Healing powers are standard
* Potency of Hold and Root powers are standard
* + Resistance to Hold and Root powers are increased by 20%.
* - Power decays at twice normal rate
* + Energy generated when blocking incoming attacks is doubled
* + Bonus to Threat generation
* 1 Defensive Passive Slot

Protector (Support)

* - All damage is reduced by 20%
* - Bonus Hit Points are reduced by 25%
* + Potency of Healing powers are increased by 20%
* + Potency of Hold and Root powers are increased by 20%
* + Resistance to Hold and Root powers are increased by 20%.
* + Power decays at 50% normal rate
* Energy generated when blocking incoming attacks is standard
* Standard Threat generation
* 1 Support Passive Slot

(informacion extraida de los foros del Champions Online)

POWER BONUSES

2009-09-27T02:14:00.001+02:00

Certain powers are made stronger by certain stats. They will list the effect in the description. Here is a list of which powers scale based on which stats:
1. Electricity
1. Electric Form
* End - Increases Energy damage (Electricity, Sonic, Particle) buff.
* Rec - Increases Energy damage resistance.
2. Fire
1. Fiery Form
* Pre - Increases Elemental damage (Fire, Ice, Toxic) buff.
* Rec - Increases Elemental damage resistance.
3. Force
1. Personal Force Field
* End - Increases the amount of damage the force field can absorb.
* Ego - Increases the amount of health the force field regains every 3 seconds.
4. Ice
1. Ice Form
* End - Increases Elemental damage buff.
* Dex - Increases Elemental damage resistance.
5. Archery
1. None
6. Gadgeteering
1. None
7. Munitions
1. Holdout Pistol
* Dex - Increased damage when landing a critical hit.
2. Killer Instinct
* Dex - Returns Energy when you land a critical hit with a munitions power.
* Ego - Increases the amount of Energy returned by critical hits.
8. Power Armor
1. Invulnerability
* Str - Increases the fixed damage reduction.
* Con - Increases the percentage damage reduction.
9. Martial Arts (Claws, Single Blade, Dual Blades, and Unarmed)
1. Lightning Reflexes
* Dex - Increases dodge and avoidance.
10. Telekinesis
1. Telekinesis (the power)
* Ego - Increases the size of objects that can be lifted and damage done.
2. Ego Form
* Con - Increases damage reduction.
* Ego - Increases the damage of second blade.
3. Ego Surge
* Ego - Increases the damage of second blade.
11. Telepathy
1. None
12. Might
1. Defiance
* Con - Increases defense gained.
2. Enrage
* Str - Increases damage buff.
13. Darkness
1. Shadow Form
* Con - Increases defense gained.
* End - Increases damage buff.
14. Sorcery (all)
1. None
* However, Int increases pet damage and Pre increases pet health, heals, and buffs. This set is almost entirely pets, heals, and buffs.
15. Supernatural
1. Regeneration
* Con - Regeneration does NOT heal based on total health, CON has no impact on this power. You can see my test results here.
* Rec - Improves the regeneration rate.
* Dex - Is NOT supposed to allow Regeneration to crit, confirmed by a developer here.
2. Resurgence
* Con - Resurgence appears to heal based on total hitpoints, so higher Con indirectly improves Resurgence.

(informacion extraida de los foros del Champions Online)

INNATE BONUSES

2009-09-26T21:56:00.000+02:00

Every stat provides some sort of benefit to your character. These are described in game and you can place your cursor over the stat in your Character window to see how much of a benefit they provide to each thing. These benefits are the same for everyone, regardless of powers. Here is the list:
1. Strength

o Increases Knockback strength for all knockback attacks. -- 1 Str = 1% Knockback strength
o Increases resistance to Knockback. -- 1 Str = 1% Knockback resistance
o Increases ability to break from tangible holds.
o Increases melee damage (excluding Ego Blades). The damage bonus caps at 20% and should a

Super Stat.

o Increases the weight that can be lifted by "Pickup and Throw" ability.

2. Constitution

o Increases Health. -- 1 Con = 10 Health

3. Ego

o Increases critical strike damage. -- Critical Severity = (EGO * 20)/Level
o Increases ability to break from intangible holds.
o Ego does NOT universally improve the strength or duration of holds. Confirmed by a developer here.

4. Recovery

o Increases Energy Equilibrium. -- Equilibrium = Base Eq + (REC * 0.71)
o Increases the percentage of your Total Energy gained when using Energy Building attacks, requiring fewer attacks to reach full Energy.

5. Dexterity

o Increases critical strike chance. -- Varies logarithmically level to level. @ 40 - Crit Chance = 0.161 * (DEX - 39.03)
o Increases effectiveness of stealth powers.

6. Intelligence

o Reduces Energy costs.
o Reduces cooldown times. -- Power recharge bonus = INT*0.0015
o Increases Pet damage.
o Increases stealth detection.

7. Presence

o Increases threat in Defensive role. -- Percent Threat Gain = PRE/10
o Decreases threat in Balanced, Offensive and Support roles. -- Percent Threat Reduction = PRE/5 in Balanced Role
o Increases Pet health.
o Increases Healing and Buffing effects.

8. Endurance

o Increases maximum Energy. -- 1 END = 1 Energy
o Increases the numerical amount of Energy gained by Energy Building attacks, but you still take the same number of hits to fill your Energy.

(informacion extraida de los foros del Champions Online)

CHAMPIONS ONLINE POWERSET ANALYSIS

2009-09-26T21:48:00.001+02:00

POWERSET ANALYSIS

First off, I would like to say: Darkness rocks! If you're looking for a powerset with good damage, versatility, good synergy (especially with Telepathy/Telekinesis), and little redundancy, look no further. It does, unfortunately, have two major drawbacks: 1. Unlike some other powersets, it doesn't have that many powers, so you will definitely have to dip into some other powersets. 2. A couple of the powers are JUST BAD (see below). Without further adieu, the powers:

Shadow Bolt: As far as energy builders go, this one isn't bad. Decent damage and energy generation. The Despondency advantage is great for keeping fear up on your main target, which helps out a great deal with several other powers.

Shadow Blast: A good bread n' butter single target attack. However, not so great that you can't replace it with another power (Ego Blast is a bit slower but hits harder). The advantage Psychotic Break is nice for the stun and works great with Despondency. Unfortunately, the DoT it adds is a bit lackluster. So, unless you want the stun for utility, consider getting rank 3 instead.

Shadow Embrace: A GREAT aoe. The damage on this power will easily kill most henchman squads and take a nice chunk away from a villain's health. The damage is so nice, in fact, I frequently find myself using it on single targets instead of Shadow Blast when I have a lot of energy and I want something to die fast. The Fatal Allure advantage is great if you want to add cc to the power. It will knock your enemies all over the place while you continue to melt their faces off and is great for pvp. However, if you have another aoe cc/dmg (like ego storm) or don't plan on pvp'ing, consider grabbing rank 3 instead for even more damage.

Life Drain: A MUST for any Darkness build, but it requires a few advantage points to make it shine. Rank 2 is, of course, nice to have but the Vampiric Sympathy advantage is what really makes this power outstanding. When coupled with Despondency and used against a Feared target, this power will easily heal you to full (even while MV's are beating on you) while still damaging your target. Definitely get Vampiric Sympathy instead of rank 3. Note: the healing of this ability functions independently of the damage and will heal you for the regular amount with or without shadow form or other damage buffs.

Ebon Rift: Eww. Remember when I said some Darkness powers are just bad? This is one of them. The damage is subpar, for a tier 3 power, it is difficult to aim, it is useless for pvp, and provides no cc. Shadow Embrace is a much better aoe. That being said, this power does have one use: a glitch that lets it kill enemies immune to knockback with the Vengeful Shadows advantage. Other than that, skip it.

Ebon Void: An ok shielding power. Definitely looks cool at the higher ranks but the lack of a lingering effect hampers it. If you do get it, then definitely pick up the Voracious Darkness advantage which increases its defense the longer you block. As a side note: if you have Regeneration as a passive, this is the shield for you! Whenever the fight doesn't go your way, start blocking, regain more health, and get more defense the longer you block/heal!

Shadow Shroud: A nice dps buff. If you don't have something to break out of holds, consider it. However, it offers no damage mitigation and the only defense it does give comes from its advantage Terrifying Visage, which is useless against ranged attackers.

Spirit Reverberation: As far as secondary energy unlocks go, this one is nice. Almost all your non-henchman opponents will be feared (if you have despondency), so it will constantly be giving you energy. However, as a Darkness toon you won't have too many problems with energy, so you can skip this if needed.

Dark Transfusion: A situationally beneficial power. The damage it causes you isn't huge, but the fact that it blocks most forms of healing can be very detrimental. If you are on a team and not getting hit, it can help out your damage, but using it while you have aggro is very risky. If you do pick it up, definitely grab Blood Sacrifice for the free damage.

Shadow Form: Freaking awesome. Stylish and effective. The damage buff is very nice and applies to Ego damage as well, making it work great with Telekinesis and Telepathy attacks. Unfortunately, the damage resistance of this energy form is next to useless. Personally, I run Shadow Form instead of a defensive passive and have no problem soloing, though I do have some healing spells for backup.

Grasping Shadows: The other BAD power in this set. Though the animation is cool and the energy cost is decent, there are very few situations in which you can actually use it. There are two reasons for this: 1. the area it effects is based on the charge time. So for it to effect its full area you have hold it for the full charge time. 2. It fails if you take any damage and expends the cooldown of the power anyway. Definitely skip .

Recommended powers from other frameworks:

Ego Storm: A great tier3 aoe dmg/cc. Much better and more reliable than Ebon Rift AND it scales with Shadow Form

Ego Sprites: Another aoe that scales with Shadow Form. The energy cost is next to nothing so it is basically free damage on long fights. Take it with the Slave Mentality and using it with Life Drain can make you nigh-unkillable in pvp.

Regeneration: If you want a defensive passive to take with darkness, this is the one. It works fine without superstatting recovery and combining its healing with life drain and/or ego sprites is another way to ensure you survivability.

(informacion extraida de los foros del Champions Online)