On the crumbling edge of the mesa of Mires, sits brooding Iapyx. Its an ugly place, a grim place; harsh bleak steel and dusty burning air, but such is life for mankind now. Across a flimsy bridge, atop a lone pinnacle lies a glowing pillar of light, incongruous in this otherwise desolate and melting land; an Eloh Control point, a very literal line in the sand. The AFS have been driven from Earth to this wretched ball of molten slag called Arieki, and by the look of the massive fortifications on the landward side of the bridge, refuse to be driven any further.
Of course the Bane have other ideas, and these control points attract frequent and unwelcome visits, and indeed, often fall completely to the footsoldiers of the Neph. Good job we were on duty last night then!
We're doing well, although are both in the continual throes of alt-indecision, thanks to Tabula Rasa's unique cloning system. In normal games of our type, you get your Main to level 30, take one look behind you, and then decide that perhaps the sudden craving to be a different class entirely will pass, and that you'd rather not do the last thirty levels again, only this time with less armour and more fiery balls.
In TR, its a bit different and level 30 is a perfect time to split off a copy of yourself, only in a different class, and suddenly, you find, as we have, that you've actually got four viable characters to choose from, for the big push to the end-game. Me, I have a Ranger that's close to becoming a Spy and Sniper, and also a Grenadier that remembered to make a Guardian Clone just before 30 too! My accomplice has similar troubles, only its Demolitionist, Engineer, Medic and Exobiologist. All quite confusing and we've been spending the last few sessions mucking about and trying to work out which suits us best.
In the end, for me at least, the path of least resistance won; my Grenadier, being furthest ahead, will have to repeat less, so that'll do. I suspect that by now, however, I've well and truly mucked up my skill and attribute spending, doing my usual trick of putting one point in everything and thus becoming not very good at anything. As a Grenadier, I have access to flamethrowers and rocket launchers, which sounds great, but I seem to get the best results out of the rifle and shotgun, two guns that absolutely everyone can use!
This is probably because the Firearms skill is something I have 'Pump 5' in - max possible skill point spending - while my more specialised guns are all at piddling ones and twos. I'm fast learning that for the guns you want to use a lot, and indeed the armour, pump five really does seem to be the order of the day. I see loads of people going on about how rocket launchers rock, on General Chat, but continue to be underwhelmed by my own shoulder-mounted firework dispenser.
I've also likely bollocked up my Attributes too - when presented with three points and three things to put them in, I invariably panic, and put one in each, because, 'you never know'. Well, now I do, and while probably being a far more competent Logos (magic) user then most of my class (In Logos Abilities I've got all Pump 1 in anyway), my scores in The One That Gives You Loads of HP, and The One That Makes You Crit Lots, are decidedly sub-par.
So its on to the Respec Programme, again, something that exists in all decent MMOs, and is a kind of online gaming Betty Ford Clinic for Indecisive and Incompetent 'Min-Min'ers, like me. In TR, this is all done via the tokens dropped by enemies as Control Point Battles, such as can be found at Iapyx, every twenty minutes or so. I do enjoy these, but they can be quite frustrating too.
First off, we have to capture the thing in the first place, which is not easy. First you have to clear any patrolling enemies outside; generally normal mixed squads, although usually several levels higher than the surrounding yard trash. Optionally after that, the base turrets can be destroyed - they rarely kill you outright, but the attrition can mount up if they're still active. Then you have to break through an energy shield across the gate, with a huge number of HP.
Of course, knocking on the door as loudly as that, has predictable results, and at this point, pretty much every monster in the place comes boiling out to see what the fuss is. When they realise that it is not in fact, Avon Calling, things usually go downhill from there.
These things really are not meant to be soloed, and typically contain about 30-50 mobs, all of a higher level than the surrounds. TR's enemy squads really do work together well too - healers raising fallen troops, techs building mini-turrets and repairing armour, shield drones protecting the nightmarish melee stomper Kael, laser snipers who blind you and then run away when challenged - hard work out in the field, but at a CP? Well, the first visit didn't go well.
Our second push was more cunning. Upon returning, we picked out a nearby hilltop, with sandbag walls on and dug in. My accomplice was an Engineer, and despite a nerfing in Patch 1.7 that they wouldn't stop grumbling about, their turrets and shield domes still seem to make for a very strong defensible position, given time to prepare. I hunkered down with my trusty rifle and started plinking at the base forcefield from 100m away. This is the military equivalent of knocking on the door and then running away giggling. It worked too! Many Bane came out, stomped about in anger, then went back in. Some, a little nearer, took a second bullet to the face, and bringing only some of their friends, came to storm our hilltop.
It was glorious! We held our ground as (more manageable) waves of Bane tried to make it to the top, but the pair of us were dashing about, the Engineer replacing lost turrets and me unloading an incendiary shotgun into the faces of anything that made it on to the summit, crit-killing* like a maniac, both under the comforting glow of a shield dome of our own this time. We did get knocked off the top at one point, I must admit - bloody sonic hounds, but damnit, this was OUR hill and we charged back up there and liberated 'Van Hemlock's Knoll' for the good of all mankind once more!
We were so caught up in our own private little battle that we didn't notice that a few other AFS had showed up and broken inside the main base itself. Ho hum. Making sure the primary objective, a small hill of no strategic value whatsoever, was secure, we sheepishly followed inside to help with the cleanup. Still, by diverting a fair portion of the defending force away, I like to think we'd helped. The cleanup was still hard work, but we gunned the alien menace down, and secured the control point obelisk, re-enabling all the facilities for everyone to use; waypoint, hospital, vendors, etc.
Quite hard work all in all, and clearly content designed for upwards of six players, all working at the communal enterprise of keeping our facilities open. Plenty of tokens for the both of us though.
Of course the peace never lasts, and twenty minutes later, its our turn to defend. I think there was about five of us still in the place when the dropships arrived. Defence is somewhat easier, particularly on the PUG nature of the defenders; players not necessarily in the same squad, who all just happen to be there when the alarms go off.
The enemy comes in two distinct waves for this bit. Presumably, if no-one is there at all to defend, the first, much less numerous wave just steamrolls in and becomes the defence force for the next poor buggers who need the outpost. A modestly vigorous defence by a handful of players is usually sufficient to drive that wave off, and then the real fun begins. The second wave is an assault in earnest, usually includes at least one Boss, and probably needs at least ten players of equivalent level to drive off without trouble.
There were less of us, and things got very hot indeed. We prevailed, but not in an especially heroic manner, with both of us taking repeated visits to the Hospital Tent on the old Resurrection Express. Most of my own kills were by rocket-sniping from the top of a sentry tower that the majority of the Bane seemed unable to negotiate, making it a bit of a scenery exploit really. I'm not proud, but this is war! Mind you, that still didn't stop me having to drop the launcher in a panic and whip out Susan (My Laser MCG) to deal with a sudden Kael leaping clear out of the courtyard and through the window I was sniping from. Gave me quite a shock and a lot of circle-strafe Polka ensued.
Elsewhere in the melee, the others were faring somewhat better, and eventually we drove them out and resecured the place, gaining a nice stack of the other sort of tokens in the process.
Iapyx stands for another day, but there's always tomorrow...
The CP battles are a lot of fun, but not something that can be attempted on a casual basis, certainly not for the soloist. Best bet is find a squad and/or clan, or try to keep to the ones that see a lot of player foot-traffic anyway, so you have a fair bit of incidental backup when it all kicks off. Or, of course, just head for one that's ten levels lower than you and own the hell out of everything! Payback is a bitch, as they say...
(* MMO documentation being what it typically is, it wasn't until my accomplice joined the game and pointed out to me what fun Crit-Killing is. Some enemies, when killed, do not immediately die, but instead stand there twitching, with a red skull over their head. At this point, if you run up to them and hit 'F', you can kick their head clean off! The roundhouse kick that follows results in a number of outstandingly gruesome ends to the defeated enemy, varying by the damage type that killed them, and all are spectacular. You also get double xp for it, as a kind of Style Bonus! I only wish I could hold up scorecards a.l.a City of Heroes as my frenzied Engineering assistant flies through the air and lands a kick so hard that only the monsters shadow remains. We're both completely addicted. Its so childish, but such fun!)