Category Archives: Thursday in the Zone

Gaming-related posts, covering games of my particular interest from the collectible, video, and PC genres.

Thursday in the Zone

Life Gain…It’s Not Just a Stall Tactic Anymore!

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lifegainnotstall
In my other posts on Magic the Gathering and casual gaming versus competitive gaming, I’ve often touched on the fact that there are many ways to play a game like Magic. Many competitive strategies involve lots of aggression or opponent control, and certainly these are faster ways to win than the style I’m about to describe. But just because a strategy doesn’t win quickly doesn’t mean it’s not worth looking at.

Life-gain in M:TG has often been characterized as nothing but a stall tactic, a way to keep yourself in the game while you build up slowly over turns. But choosing to keep your life total high can be much more important. The following are 3 ways you can use life-gain in your own decks: as a stabilizer, as opponent deterrent, and even–GASP!–a win condition!

Dipping Your Toe Into Life-Gain: Life-Gain as Stabilizer

Most times, life-gain is the net that opens below you as you fall from the tightrope. Many of the instant life-gain spells (see a fairly complete list here) give you the ability to partially or fully recover from a hit on your opponent’s turn, leaving you open to gain more life on your turn. (Remember, you have to live through the damage your opponent has dealt to you before you can gain the life off the instant spell.)

This kind of life-gain can be fitted into your existing strategy without making your deck too life-gain-based–it adds just a touch of resiliency. If you find that your super-aggressive deck isn’t staying around long enough when games go beyond 5 or 6 turns, you can put in a bit of life-gain (often combined with other control-based game effects like removing a creature or land, countering a spell, etc). Also, if your control or combo deck is having trouble staying stable in the first few turns before it can really build up, life-gain can give you a little cushion against high-damage decks while you’re searching up your combo pieces.

Partial Devotion to Life-Gain: Life-Gain as Opponent Deterrent

Sometimes, though, life-gain can be a way to discourage your opponent from attacking, especially in a group game. If all you’re doing is gaining life, and no damage your opponent deals really sticks, then they are likely to go for an easier target, or instead just build up their own strategy and leave you alone. Even in a one-on-one game, a good bit of life-gain can work as a mind game on your opponent, making them despair of ever taking your life total down permanently.

You don’t have to have tons of life-gain cards to make this work–just a playset each of Life Burst and Rest for the Weary can be enough for some decks, as well as some good lifelink creatures to block with. With a partial devotion to life-gain, there will be enough life-gain to shield you AND to keep your opponent guessing about how hard they’ll have to hit you for any damage to stick!

Total Devotion to Life-Gain: Life-Gain as Win Condition

Now, when I think of the concept of life-gain as a win condition, two cards come to mind: Test of Endurance and Felidar Sovereign. Both of these cards have a “You win if your life total is at or above this level at the beginning of your upkeep;” one is an enchantment, one is a creature. It is an unusual way to win, but it is actually quite effective; I have a deck based around Test of Endurance, visible here, which incorporates both damage prevention and steady life-gain off of everything one can possibly gain life off.

Building a deck like this means that you’re largely hunkering down and waiting to win–you’re not going to be doing a whole lot to the other player, unless you choose to use Lifelink creatures to do combat damage, or unless you build in a bit of opponent control into your own deck. Since I’m a more reactive, defensive player, I like this hunkered-down style of playing–the other person gets to play what they want, and they can TRY to attack me, but it’s not going to do much good, since I can bounce back pretty easily from any hit.

Summary

If you’ve never tried life-gain before, remember that you don’t have to devote 40 out of 60 cards to gaining life–you can add as few as 8 to give your deck a little more rebound from the depths of single-digit life totals. And it’s definitely not a weak strategy; indeed, if used correctly, it can blindside your opponent and bring you an unexpected win!

Thursday in the Zone

You Hurt Me, I Hurt You: The Mystics Team Ability

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youhurtmeihurtyou
In HeroClix, most gamers typically gravitate towards high-damage, high-attack pieces, especially the ones that can move and attack in the same turn. Pieces with 11 or 12 attack, 3 or 4 damage, and either Charge, Running Shot, or Hypersonic Speed are the “Most Wanted Clix.”

I am not one of these gamers–in fact, the pieces I choose for my collection could be labeled “second-stringers” at best. If I have a 10 attack showing among my teams, it’s an unusual team for me. Most of my teams are made up of support pieces and a few solid but not overpowered pieces. It’s only when people begin to play against me that they realize those smaller pieces are actually serving another purpose besides attack: they are all Mystics. And they are FAR stronger than my opponents recognize, until it’s too late.

What Is The Mystics Team Ability?

The Mystics team ability (not to be confused with the “Mystical” keyword!) is indicated by any of the following team symbols on a HeroClix figure’s base:


From left:  Mystics, CrossGen, Arachnos

Any of these three symbols, printed on the back of a character’s dial, mean that if an opponent attacks and successfully damages this figure, the attacking figure takes 1 unavoidable damage. It’s a “You hurt me, I hurt you” strategy–very reactive in playstyle, since it depends on the other person making a successful attack.

Mystics In Practice

This might seem counterproductive at first. Why would someone want their own figures to be damaged? Doesn’t that mean you’ll be beaten faster?

Not necessarily! 😀

Run Lots of Support with Mystics

Here’s the primary beauty of the strategy: more often, the people I play against are not running pieces that have Support (the ability to heal a friendly character). I, however, am running one or two pieces with Support (also known as “Medics”). If one of my Mystics pieces takes a wee bit too much damage and is in danger of being KOed, I simply get him or her back to a Medic while some of my other Mystics pieces take over. In a few turns, my hurt Mystic is back on top click, and the opponent’s pieces have likely taken more damage in the meantime, either from a Mystic hit or from actually being attacked.

Run Wildcards with Mystics, Too!

One way I love to run Mystics pieces is to run them with a bunch of Wildcards–a list of Wildcard team symbols follow:


From left:  Spiderman-Ally, B.P.R.D., Minions of Doom, Legion of Superheroes, Calculator, Freedom Phalanx

The reason? Wildcards can copy the Mystics team ability. Suddenly, Young Superman is a Mystic–you deal him damage, you take a damage! Spider-Girl is a Mystic, too–you deal her damage, you take a damage! And so on.

So, if my whole team is full of Mystics such as these, and you don’t have a Support piece, you are in trouble. True, your pieces might deal more damage to mine at first, but I likely have more Wildcard Mystics ready to fill in for the one who’s running back to the Medic. Not only that, but the Wildcard pieces help round out the team with some higher damage and attack, as well as some strong abilities of their own, like Charge, Incapacitate, or my favorite, Super Senses. (I roll a 5 or 6–your attack misses my character. I roll a 1 through 4–my character takes damage, which means yours takes a damage, too. It’s a win-win!)

Important Pieces of Strategy

This team ability works best if you have a lot of small point-value characters rather than a few large point-value characters. Having a Mystic over a hundred points is great, but you’re not going to have a lot of room for support, other Mystics, or Wildcards. My favorite strategy is to actually choose two of the cheaper Mystics (Zatanna Zatara, Jason Blood, Nightshade, etc.) and build my team full of Wildcards and Support from there. That way, I have the Mystics team covered, but I also have room for attacking pieces that will likely take some damage along the way.

Try the Mystics team ability sometime if you’re looking for a different way to win. Sometimes, an opponent’s successful attack can work against them!

Thursday in the Zone

Building a Better Team Support Toon, Part 2

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betterteamsupport2
As I discussed in part 1 of this topic last Thursday, team support is made up of a conscientious playstyle and helpful powers. Part 1 showed how any player’s toon, no matter how damage-dealing, can be equipped with some team-support powers that boost effectiveness in large teams.

Today, I’m going to go through the natural team-support power trees available in the game–these are generally only available to Defenders, Controllers, Corruptors, and Masterminds.

Cold Domination

Available to: Controllers, Corruptors, Defenders
Best for: Debuffing enemies, buffing allies
Complete List of Powers

Cold Domination coats your allies in icy armor so that they can resist many types of damage; you can also slow your enemies’ movement, recharge rates, and even reduce their ability to damage you or your allies. It can be a great fit for an Ice Control Controller who wants to maintain thematic attacks, or really for any of the three builds to get some strong debuffs and buffs.

Dark Miasma/Darkness Affinity

Available to: Corruptors, Masterminds, Defenders; Controllers get Darkness Affinity instead
Best for: Healing, resurrecting, & hiding allies; debuffing and holding enemies
Dark Miasma Power List/Darkness Affinity Power List

Dark Miasma/Darkness Affinity does a little bit of everything–a little heal and rez, a little stealth, a little scaring the pants off your foes, and even a little damage thrown in there for good measure. You generally suck health or stats away from the bad guys and give it to yourself and your team around you. It’s a great power set for toons who need to be a backup healer for a team, since the heal and rez both require Accuracy checks to work, but I have also had success being the main healer for a team on a Dark Miasma Corruptor. Playing your Dark Miasma/Darkness Affinity character carefully (i.e., not running into the fray like a Tank–guilty as charged) will yield better results.

Empathy

Available to: Defenders, Controllers
Best for: Healing, resurrecting & buffing allies
Complete List of Powers

Empathy is the go-to set for healing, for the most part, but it’s not the only healing set out there. It is, however, a set that doesn’t require Accuracy checks for healing. You can boost your allies’ Regeneration and Recovery rates (how fast they heal and regain endurance), as well as buffing them against all types of damage, and helping them resist negative status effects like Sleeps and Holds.

Force Field

Available to: Defenders, Controllers, Masterminds
Best for: Buffing allies, controlling enemies
Complete List of Powers

Force Field ally buff powers help your allies avoid getting hit in the first place; the occasional foe captures, knockbacks, and disorients you can fire off help your teams survive big enemy spawns. It’s not one of the more popular choices, but I find that Force Field toons just make the rest of the team’s jobs easier. It’s easier to mow down enemies when you’re not taking as much damage, and with your enemies either struggling to get back on their feet or wandering around drunkenly, it’s a much shorter battle. You, as the Force Field toon, may not do a lot of damage, but you are invaluable to the team.

Kinetics

Available to: Defenders, Controllers, Corruptors
Best for: Healing and buffing allies; debuffing and controlling enemies
Complete List of Powers

This set, along with Empathy, is renowned for its buffs (Speed Boost and Increase Density, for instance), but it’s also a passable healing set as well as a debuff set. I don’t have a lot of experience with my Kinetics character so far, but in the midst of battle, she’s very efficient at pulling health off bosses (much like Dark Miasma). I also find that the debuffs, much like Force Field, make the team’s job of owning face much easier–it pulls away speed and Recovery rate from your enemies, weakening them.

Nature Affinity

Available to: Controllers, Corruptors, Defenders, Masterminds
Best for: Heals and buffs with a few debuffing effects
Complete List of Powers

This power set forms a perfect thematic set with Plant Control, since most of its powers are defensive and protective. LOTS of healing, lots of buffing, and just a bit of enemy damage through poison and holds means that Nature Affinity is a good alternative to Empathy, Radiation Emission, and Kinetics. (For instance, Lifegiving Spores giving both +Regen and +Recovery? AWESOME!)

Pain Domination

Available to: Corruptors, Masterminds
Best for: Healing with a large side of combat boosts and tricks.
Complete List of Powers

Pain Domination is like Empathy with teeth–you’ve still got heals and buffs, but there are some seriously powerful enemy debuffs hidden within those powers, too. This is a great set for a multitasking healer who doesn’t have time to heal/buff and damage/debuff in separate actions. (Conduit of Pain as a retaliatory Rez is hilarious!)

Poison

Available to: Controllers, Corruptors, Masterminds
Best for: Damaging enemies, healing and buffing (occasionally)
Complete List of Powers

Poison is best for somebody who doesn’t want or need to play healer much, but does want to debuff enemies in all sorts of ways, reducing defenses, resistances, speed, To-Hit, and even Regen rate. There are some healing/buffing powers, and even a limited Rez (Elixir of Life), but this is more in the capacity of “emergency healer” rather than “primary healer.” Bright side: the debuffs alone should make it pretty easy for a team to mow through enemies, rendering the healing less necessary anyway!

Radiation Emission

Available to: Defenders, Controllers, Corruptors
Best for: Healing, resurrecting, and buffing allies; debuffing enemies
Complete List of Powers

This power set is one-half of the popular Controller build called “Ill/Rad,” or Illusion Control/Radiation Emission. It’s a potent healing set, not quite on par with Empathy, but pretty close, from my estimation. I’ve seen Radiation Emission toons be the main healers of a team, or sometimes the secondary healer–it depends on your playstyle. They also are great for debuffing enemies, bringing down their ability to recharge, to move quickly, to damage you or your allies, or even be able to hit you at all. There’s also a surprising damaging attack late in the set, when all else fails!

Storm Summoning

Available to: Controllers, Corruptors, and Masterminds
Best for: Debuffing and controlling enemies; buffing and healing allies
Complete List of Powers

I’ve played a Storm Summoning Controller for a good while, and I find that the power set is best for locking enemies in place and debuffing them. Heals and buffs are few and far between, which means that your Storm Summoning toon won’t be the main healer, but you can be backup healer in a pinch. The storms are great for debuffing and knocking around your enemies, and it does a good bit of damage (at least, for a team-support character!). While they’re busy trying to recover from what you’ve done to them, your teammates are mowing ’em down. Fun fun!

Sonic Resonance

Available to: Defenders, Controllers, Corruptors
Best for: Buffing allies, debuffing enemies
Complete List of Powers

This is a pretty basic set, and not a very popular one…but I disagree with popular opinion. Played right, your Sonic Resonance toon can make enemies up to 50% less resistant to all types of damage. What does this mean? It means that your team mows through high-level bad guys as if they were your level, demolishing them in 5 seconds or less rather than standing there slashing for close to a minute. (I didn’t know just how much this would make a difference until I played a Sonic Resonance toon of my own, and saw how cool it was.) Debuffs aside, there are also some great team buffs for Defense and Damage Resistance, but you need to be in the middle of your team to make sure everybody is getting the benefit.

Thermal Radiation

Available to: Controllers, Corruptors, and Masterminds
Best for: Healing, resurrecting, and buffing allies; debuffing enemies
Complete List of Powers

This set is more like Empathy in that none of your healing powers require an Accuracy check; however, your buffs and debuffs make up more of your power tree. Thermal Radiation toons help their teams by keeping them shielded from harm, boosting their fighting abilities, and drawing stats away from your enemies. I don’t have a lot of experience with my Thermal Radiation character as of yet, but I like how her powers work so far–everything helps my teammates, even when I target an enemy!

Time Manipulation

Available to: Controllers, Defenders, Corruptors, and Masterminds
Best for: Recharging allies’ powers, boosting ToHit, healing, and enemy debuff
Complete List of Powers

Time Manip toons help with combat by boosting +Recharge, +Damage, and +ToHit, as well as bringing down enemy defenses and resistances…AND there’s healing, too! It’s an excellent power set for somebody who doesn’t just want to be “the healer” for a team, since these powers facilitate battle for the rest of the team. (Farsight and Temporal Selection are standout buffs, while Temporal Mending looks like a great Heal!)

Traps

Available to: Corruptors, Defenders, Masterminds
Best for: Enemy debuff and damage
Complete List of Powers

Traps aren’t necessarily your typical “team support” tree, but they can help a team weaken/get rid of very large mobs, which is supportive in its own way, much like Controllers’ Primary Power Sets. A Traps toon can’t do much healing, but the Force Field Generator and Triage Beacon can help in a pinch. Otherwise, you can pretty much pick your preferred flavor of debuff (Caltrops, Acid Mortar, Time Bomb, etc.), and run with it!

Trick Arrow

Available to: Controllers, Corruptors, Defenders, Masterminds
Best for: Enemy debuff
Complete List of Powers

Trick Arrows are purely for negatively affecting enemies, nothing else. Pull a Hawkeye and bring an arrow for all occasions–keep your enemy from flying, recharging their powers, recovering endurance, dealing damage, etc. Or you can use a couple of the arrow types to hold them in place, make them slip, or even put them to sleep! A toon with Trick Arrows can thus help a big team manage lots of enemies. (And, if you happen to be playing with a Fire toon, shoot a few Oil Slick Arrows for extra fun.)

Summary

Building a natural team support toon takes having a general idea of what you want to do with your team support powers, and which toon archetype you want to build on (Defender, Controller, Corruptor, Mastermind). But there are literally dozens of combinations that can make you able to support any team you work with!

Thursday in the Zone

Building a Better Team Support Toon, Part 1

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teamsupporttoon1
On City of Heroes, many people spend lots of time playing solo–running a few quick missions before work or school, or just taking some time to hunt for badges to unwind. This in itself calls for a very efficient damage-dealing type of character (“toon” in the game’s parlance); you must be able to deal with everything you come up against on your own, so there’s no room for useless powers in your build.

Building a Solo Character =/= Building a Teaming Character

However, this style of building toons does not always suit team play. In a team, there are other players to think of–you can’t just go charging in, aggravate all the bad guys in a room, and expect that everyone will survive. Neither can you be the sole damage-dealer for the whole team, when there are enough bad guys generated for up to 8 players in a team. This is just asking for trouble.

To play best in a team, you’ve got to be willing to support your teammates. This usually requires a mindset shift, as described above, but it also helps if you have the following powers, too:

Helpful Team-Support Powers for Every Toon

  • Recall Friend (from the Teleportation power pool): Enables me to get another player’s toon across a wide hero zone in seconds, or to pull them back to a safe area in a mission if they have been defeated. Efficient for helping lowbie toons without travel powers get around faster, or for moving large teams from mission to mission in quick succession.
  • Aid Other and Resuscitate (from the Medicine power pool): These are both healing powers–Aid Other gives some health back to a fellow player, and Resuscitate brings a character back from being defeated, with full health but no endurance. These two powers don’t always work (they require an Accuracy check), but they are great for when the main healer of the team has been defeated and we need healing NOW.

These powers are the most useful, and since they are available from power pools rather than primary or secondary power trees, any toon can choose them as one of their power picks when they level up or respec.

I generally take both Recall Friend and most of the Medicine pool with my ranged-damage toons, but I even build my close-combat toons with at least the healing powers (Recall Friend is better with toons who play more at range than close-combat, I’ve found). This might take away from my damage-dealers’ available attack powers or defensive powers, but I find that building my character this way helps my teams (which makes me feel useful and helpful, leading to happy Robin).

Don’t forget, though: when you play team support, this means you need to watch out for your team. Have your Team window open so you can monitor the health and endurance of your teammates without having to see them personally on your screen, and don’t run ahead of your team or lag behind. Match this conscientious playstyle with good team-support powers, and you’re on your way to helping whatever team you join!

We’ll cover specific team-friendly powersets in the next installment of “Building a Better Team Support Toon:” Part 2!

Thursday in the Zone

Competitive or Casual?

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competitiveorcasual
This is one of the most salient questions in all kinds of gaming, not just the nerdy kind with dice, but even video games and sports: do you play competitively or casually?

The question may seem to be a no-brainer for some people–of course you play competitively. What other reason would there be to play, except to win and learn how to win more? Once you remove the competition aspect from a game, a lot of the fun of it leaches out, and it becomes a mere distraction instead of something you can rationalize spending time on.

But, for others, the competitive angle actually eats away at the heart of what made the game popular in the first place: it’s fun. You know, fun? What we used to have playing this game before it became a nail-biting, tooth-grinding, money-gobbling event? For that matter, when a game is not played casually anymore, is it even a game anymore?

Where I’m Coming From

I’m mainly coming from a background of collectible card gaming and miniatures gaming with this article, but you can see elements of these same two schools of thought clashing in the worlds of sports, races, card games like poker, etc. In any type of game, it seems, you are always going to have the people who absolutely have to be the best at every game they play, and the people who play it to have fun with friends and socialize rather than win.

But sadly, the competitive type tends to quash out the casual type when they are brought together, like hunters shooting bald eagles–the casual players are already endangered due to everything in life having to be a competition in this day and age. Once the competitive players start sucking the life and fun out of a game by making it all serious, the casual players eventually stop trying to play. It’s no fun sitting across the table or standing across the court or field from someone who acts like every missed roll or every missed play is a nail in their coffin.

Yes, You Can Be TOO Competitive

I personally am competitive in my heart, but I hate the way that competitiveness transforms me when I play a game. Suddenly, I have to win, I have to be the best, because I’m such a perfectionist I can’t stand to lose. It really drains the fun out of the game for me, and it’s not fun for my opponent to watch me disintegrate into wordless anger every time the dice don’t roll my way. Thus, I’ve largely gone toward casual gaming, to take some of the intense pressure off and to try to train myself to have fun again.

One thing I’ve noticed, however, in my odyssey away from competitive gaming, is how much competitive gamers look down on casual gamers. To them, we are an inferior breed, weaker players, not really even worth “real” players’ time, because we don’t take the game as seriously. Having been very competitive before, I understand why they get like this–sometimes, it feels like the whole world is staked on your next card, your next shot at the basket. But when a game becomes that important to you, hasn’t it become less of a hobby and more of an addiction?

When Games Are No Longer Fun…Re-Examine Yourself

I don’t intend to solve this quandary in one blog post, but I did want to bring this to people’s attention. Whether you play games just to have fun or you play them to win, if you’re happy doing it, then you’re doing something right. The only time I worry is when it seems that games are no longer fun and they are instead things that you have to win at to be happy. Then, I believe, competition has crossed the line into obsession.

Thursday in the Zone

Game Tactics: Are You Proactive or Reactive?

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gametactics
In most collectible games, like Magic: the Gathering and HeroClix, there are typical tactics and strategies to follow. Lots of players will look for “killer combos”–cards or miniatures you play together to win more or more quickly. (In the case of Magic: the Gathering, people often put their most tournament-capable decklists up online for others to copy and play.)

Sometimes, these combos will suit your playstyle perfectly. Other times, it will seem completely alien to play these cards or these miniatures together. It all depends on what kind of player you are–proactive or reactive.

Proactive Player

  • Shows himself/herself as a threat early on
  • Strategy is quick to set up, quick to knock down
  • Best defense is a good offense
  • Shines in one-on-one games
  • Overwhelmed in multiplayer games
  • Reflexive and aggressive

Reactive Player

  • Looks harmless until other player strikes first
  • Strategy takes a while to set up but is resilient
  • Best offense is a good defense
  • Shines in multiplayer games
  • Can’t stabilize soon enough in one-on-one games
  • Slow, strategic, defensive

My Personal Type

Personally, I’m much more reactive than proactive. I tend to play like a spider–camp out, weave my web, and wait for the opponent to step into my trap, while building up so much redundancy that by the time anybody realizes what a threat I am, it’s far too late for them to do anything about it. But I don’t generally attack first–I wait to be provoked into action. In multiplayer games, where I have the most fun by far, I often find myself allowing the other players to thrash each other before stepping out from behind the curtain and mopping up.

Do We Game Like We Live?

This self-knowledge led me to ponder something, though: as gamers, are our favorite strategies reflective of how we live our lives? I found out that I’m pretty reactive in real life too–I’m your ally unless you cross me, and then I am your enemy until you explain yourself. Otherwise, I try not to make enemies of people because I hate the feeling of another person being angry at me. I don’t necessarily have to have the last word, as my “mop-up” strategy implies, but I do prefer to stay out of a fight unless personally attacked. Once I’m attacked, all bets are off!

If you’re a gamer of any sort, think about this the next time you sit down to a game, and see how your tactics fit into one of these two basic types. You might just find a little self-knowledge hidden among the bits of your favorite hobbies, like I did!

Thursday in the Zone

HeroClix

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heroclix
HeroClix is best described as “chess with comic-book characters”–within this game, you get to play your favorite characters in a self-created team, facing them off against your opponent’s team of characters to see which team comes out on top!

Many of the most popular Marvel and DC characters appear as models in the game already, as seen below (top left to bottom right: Captain America, Superman, Green Lantern, Black Widow, Incredible Hulk, Batman). However, that’s not all there is to know about HeroClix–read on to find out more!

captainamerica superman
greenlantern blackwidow
hulk batman

Basic Gameplay

To play HeroClix, you start out with a point total, say, 300 points. Every HeroClix figure is worth a certain number of points; to build a working team, you select heroes whose point values are less than or equal to the chosen game total when added together. (If the combined points of all your chosen heroes are more than the point total, you have to reformulate your team.) But as long as you stay within the point total, any type and combination of figures is open to you.

See example below, drawn from my own collection of figures:

Non-Working HeroClix Team for 300-Point Game Working HeroClix Team for 300-Point Game
Wonder Woman (127 points)
Wonder Girl (87 points)
Amazon (50 points)
Scarlet Witch (62 points)
Total: 326 points 		Wonder Woman (127 points)
Wonder Girl (87 points)
Amazon (50 points)
Elektra (36 points)
Total: 300 points

I wrote up an even more detailed article about HeroClix gameplay on my “How to Play Clix” page.

Choosing Characters Based on Powers and Abilities

Different characters are gifted with different abilities–for instance, Spiderman’s amazing wall-crawling and web-swinging abilities translate into the HeroClix ability called “Leap/Climb,” and the Flash’s lightning-fast movement translates into “Hypersonic Speed.” Hulk’s superpowered muscles grant him “Super Strength,” and Captain America gets “Energy Shield/Deflection” courtesy of his iconic shield.

These abilities are denoted by different colors printed on the base of each character’s figure. (The base of the figure is called a “dial” because it can turn to show differing abilities as the figure takes damage.) Here are my common-sense descriptions of all the powers and abilities in the game thus far.

Choosing Characters Based on Their Stats

Characters also have numbers printed on their dials, which show how strong they are in combat. For instance, the 127-point Wonder Woman I mentioned earlier starts out with 10 movement, 10 attack, 17 defense, and 5 damage–this means she can travel up to 10 spaces on a HeroClix map in one turn, and that when she attacks another character, she adds 10 to whatever number you roll on your two six-sided dice. That 17 defense means that whenever another character attacks her, they can’t damage her unless their attack number plus the number that appears on the dice equals or beats 17. And that 5 damage? If she successfully attacks another character, that character’s dial is clicked down 5 times. Considering that all characters’ dials have space for only 12 clicks on them, that’s a LOT of damage!

However, not all characters need high stats to be great at what they do. I wrote up a little bit about Experienced Destiny as an example of how low stats don’t automatically mean a bad Clix figure. Sometimes you need figures with “low” stats to be more tactical figures in your strategy!

Putting Together Your Team and Its Strategy

A large part of Clix is building a strategy that makes sense for you. Some people like to play characters that run into the fray and smash things up; others like to play characters who stand at a distance and shoot. Some players choose to take higher risks and start the battle sooner; others like to play slowly and subtly, waiting for an opponent to fall into their trap. Some players choose just a few very strong characters with high point values to make up their team; others (like me) choose to have many weaker, smaller-point-value characters which together overpower opponents with sheer numbers.

Whatever abilities, characters, and gameplay style you find yourself drawn to, you can build successful teams. Give HeroClix a try with your friends–play a few casual games. Who knows, you might run across a killer combination of figures that no one ever thought of before!

To Learn More about HeroClix

Official Site: HeroClix.com
Excellent HeroClix Forums: HCRealms
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Thursday in the Zone

Magic: the Gathering

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Magic: the Gathering is a collectible, fantasy-based card game, involving decks of at least 60 cards that you construct yourself. The basic premise is that you and your opponent are each given 20 life points to start. In a two-player game, the one who runs out of those 20 life points first loses. The game is about finding ways to protect your own life points while devising ways to take down the other player’s life points.

To Start: Find Your Preferred Way to Win

There are five basic “colors” of cards you can use to build your deck: White, Red, Green, Blue, and Black. Each color has a different philosophy of how to win:

There are also Artifact cards (which can be used with any color) and Hybrid/Multicolor (blends of two or more colors). Some philosophies of winning work well together (Blue and Black, for instance, or White and Green), and some philosophies have a harder time working together (like Red and Blue, or White and Black).

Literally endless strategies are available to be explored–there’s something for every personality. If you like to win by simply blocking anything your opponent tries to do, there’s a strategy for you (Blue and sometimes White). If you like to steamroll your opponent with huge creatures that trample across the field, there’s a strategy for you, too (Green all the way). And if you just like to blow your opponent’s stuff up, there’s a strategy for you, too (Red and sometimes Black).

Modes of Play: It’s Not Just a Two-Player Duel!

Magic: the Gathering does involve one-on-one games, but that’s not the only way you can play. Multiplayer (three or more players) games are allowed–in these situations, the last player left standing wins. Also, there’s alternative forms of the game as well, generally meant for casual play:

  • Two-Headed Giant (teams of two playing off against each other)
  • Archenemy (one player is the “villain” while a team of three players are the “heroes”)
  • Vanguard (special large-size cards with various characters from Magic lore are used to change up the rules of the game slightly)
  • Elder Dragon Highlander/Commander (choose a Legendary creature as your “general” and build a deck around him/her)
  • Mental Magic (pick up a card off a stack of random cards. You cannot play the card as itself–rather, you must play it as another card with the exact same cost. Requires lots of knowledge of various cards!)

For More Information

Visit MagicTheGathering.com for official product updates and informative articles; MTGSalvation.com also has lots of information on the history and lore of the game. I also have a website called The Gamer’s Repose, which has a fairly large Magic: the Gathering section featuring tips for beginners, and gameplay advice.

Thursday in the Zone

Why I Don’t Bother with Farmville Anymore

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nomorefarmville
I used to like Farmville quite a bit–actually, I played it for months and got addicted to it (I wish I was kidding). I even wrote a post here showcasing it…but I could not in good faith keep recommending a game that I know now is too ridiculous to get involved in.

Why might I say something like that? Well, there are 3 big reasons for me:

#1: It’s Time-Consuming/Isolating

When I started playing Farmville, it was pretty easy to manage–I had a few neighbors and a few crop plots, and I could usually take care of it all in a few minutes. But once I had played for a while, it got to where I was spending an hour a day just visiting other people’s farms and trying to help them, not to mention time spent “harvesting” and “using” virtual crops. (Also, during the time I played, I didn’t have internet at home, so I ended up having to play at the local coffee shop or friends’ houses–which meant that for at least the first hour of hanging out, I was isolating myself staring at the computer screen. Not really conducive to conversation, you know?)

#2: You Really Have to Spend Real Money to Get All the Best Stuff

Farmville and games like it have really become “pay-to-win” games. When I first started playing, you could end up getting “good” stuff if you were just patient and saved up your Farm Cash from leveling up. But after a while, the amounts of Farm Cash you had to spend just to get the essentials for operating larger virtual farms became ridiculous. There were plenty of ways you could pour real money into the game to get more Farm Cash, but I was simply not willing to invest REAL money in a fake farm!

#3: Clogs Up Facebook Feed with Notifications, Bogs Down Computers

Since I purged Farmville and other such games from my Facebook life, my notification feed is about 1000 times less congested. How liberating! When I played daily, my Notifications would overflow with people asking for Farmville help, requesting materials, etc.–there was literally so much to do on Farmville that I ended up accidentally ignoring the friends who didn’t play!

The other thing I noticed was that my computer would perform slowly while on Farmville. One wouldn’t think a Facebook game could eat RAM like that, but for whatever reason, my computer did not like it one bit. (One more reason I felt liberated when I got out of playing–suddenly I had a fast-performing computer again!)

Summary

For a while, Farmville was a delightful diversion…but it quickly devolved into an obligation, and then into a huge pain, especially when I realized how addicted to the game I had become. I got out of it before I had started paying real money, but I know folks who have gotten into serious money trouble this way. Take it from me: don’t even get involved with this kind of “pay-to-win” game; it might seem fun at first, but that’s how it hooks you. It’s just like gambling or any other kind of addiction–it’ll eat your life if you’re not careful!

Thursday in the Zone

City of Heroes

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cityofheroes

(Note: The following post was first published in February 2011; however, City of Heroes was unceremoniously shut down by its parent company, NCSoft, in November of 2012, amid much outcry from its devoted fans, myself among them. Currently, many of us are fighting for NCSoft to release the intellectual property rights so that we can keep CoH going as a fan-based game. After some debate, I have chosen to let the original post stand–with some minor edits–as a testament to how awesome this game was and still can be if certain folks will let it be.)

City of Heroes is an experience-based superhero game, which is only similar to World of Warcraft and its ilk on the surface. Boasting a powerful, nuanced character design module which has been touted by players of many different MMOs, plus a user-friendly screen design and playstyle which make the game approachable for even younger players, CoH is at once an environment rich in creativity but relaxing to play.

As a superhero in the fictional Paragon City, your job is to defeat bad guys (“arrest” them), get experience and items from them, level up, and get new powers. You can create your own superheroes based on several different archetypes:

The Five Basic Hero Types

Controller

Helps neutralize baddies by slowing them, holding or immobilizing them, putting them to sleep, confusing them, or scaring them into submission. Not a damage-dealing class necessarily, but wonderful for supporting teams, especially for helping to soften up lieutenants, bosses, and elite bosses.

Defender

Does a little bit of everything–Defenders can be second-string ranged attackers, can buff allies and debuff enemies, or heal and protect allies. This is a hard class to develop because there are so many directions you can go with it, but it is a great team-support class. You can literally become a Jack- or Jill-of-all-trades with a Defender!

Blaster

Superior ranged attacker. Not so good up close, though the Blaster secondary powersets get some close-combat powers as backup. They are definitely not Tanks, so they can be fragile, but usually you’re taking out the enemies so fast it doesn’t matter. Good to play either solo or in teams, as they provide excellent cover fire for close-combat allies.

Scrapper

Superior close-combat attacker. Can get shot to pieces before they can get close enough to attack, but the secondary defensive powersets can help a Scrapper stay alive longer. Again, they’re not Tanks, but their fragility is offset by their damage potential. Great for playing solo, can play in teams (just be careful not to go off by yourself and get killed!).

Tanker

Usually “Last Man/Last Woman Standing” of a team. Has the highest defense of any class, so Tanks can take lots more damage before being defeated. They are close-combat attackers, like Scrappers, but they don’t deal nearly the same amount of damage; however, teams benefit greatly from Tanks drawing fire away from the more fragile classes. They can play solo, but it’s usually faster and more enjoyable to level if you play your Tank in a team.

The Two Epic Hero Types

There are also two Epic classes, called the Peacebringer and the Warshade. They operate fairly similarly in terms of gameplay and build–you can build your PB or WS to be close-combat, range, or a cool blend of the two. They function like a combo of Blaster and Scrapper, with all the fragility and damage potential included. They also have three forms–human (balance of offense and defense), Nova (flight, higher offense, lower defense) and Dwarf (heavy, higher defense, lower offense). They are like a Swiss Army Knife hero!

Which form you prefer depends on how you like to play, but you can change the form up on the fly with a push of a button. The only caveat? You can’t build a Peacebringer or Warshade until you have a regular hero (Blaster, Controller, etc.) leveled up to level 20.

Basic Gameplay

Players can play missions (quests, for WoW players) by themselves, or they can play their missions with teams of superheroes working together. You can make a team with anybody–just ask somebody if they want to team! Some people play solo much better, and some players, like me, play in teams much better. It all depends on your personality. For me, CoH is such a social game that I have a lot more fun playing with others; playing by myself tends to make me feel lonely.

What Makes CoH Different

In City of Heroes, the more relaxed pace of gaming makes it stand out among MMOs. You don’t just have to play missions and beat baddie butt; in fact, the game’s many Easter eggs and side quests encourage you to stop and smell the roses while you level up. Sure, you can power-level if you want, but you’ll be missing out on what makes CoH great. Run around aimlessly in zones, see all the scenery, listen to NPC chat, click historical plaques, and run every mission you can, even the ones you think aren’t useful; you’ll learn more about the City of Heroes lore than you ever knew.

Also, you don’t have to play CoH 12 hours a day to get the absolute best of everything. This game attracts working people, students, and even parents and grandparents because it’s more approachable–the emphasis of the game lies more in developing your own heroes rather than constant raids and long quests (though raids and quests ARE available for those who want them). Also, “gear” is not worn, but equipped, and has no effect on your costume, so you can design your costume any way you want!

Lastly, creativity is important. In CoH, it’s not about mimicking an established comic book hero (since that kind of thing can get you in trouble); it’s about developing your own character and fitting them into the landscape of Paragon City, perhaps combining powersets you always wanted to try together, just for curiosity’s sake. Many players, like me, go on to make involved backstories for their characters even if they’re not on a roleplay server (which is available, by the way).

To Learn More about City of Heroes

Though CoH may be playing the role of Sleeping Beauty (or perhaps Lazarus) at the moment, we fans are keeping it alive and active in our memories and stories. The “official” CoH site has been recreated by fans on cityofheroes.ca, and I myself have created a fansite for it called Skies over Atlas, which has its own Twitter account, @skiesoveratlas. You can also check the #SaveCoH tag on Twitter to follow fan communications about the game. Rest assured, we won’t forget!