All sorts going on Tabula Rasa at the moment, and for want of a better term, I guess this is probably my main game just now. For reasons mostly to do with altitis and accidental sociability, we find ourselves on Concordia, again. I do quite like these first three maps; Wilderness, Divide and Pallisades, you understand, but if I have to go through Torcastra Prison one more time, I may go mad.
This time, and in a bid to keep level levels with a new-person we'd met, we've started over and swapped branches, with my usual and previously Specialist friend going Soldier and me trying out the Healer/Support side of the career tree. (I think everyone, in any game, should spend a few levels on an alt, as whatever 'Healer' class is available - it is always an education!) They've gone Ranger this time, and generally going a bit potty with all the revised and new Carpet Bombing stuffs; Ion Beams, Napalms and the like, and also using Stealth Armour, which a) Doesn't protect that well in a tanking kind of role, and b) makes all the monsters not notice them much, and instead charge after me, the healer!
I'm a Biotechncian now, and in a complete reversal of my previous waffling about how suckey all the support weapon choices sounded, am now very impressed with them; the Leech Gun and Injector Guns specifically.
The Specialist's Leech Gun, far from flinging invertebrate parasites, as I previously suspected, in fact shoots out a sustained beam laser type of thing, which drains the enemy's armour/health, and then gives it not only to me, but to all members of my squad standing close enough to me. Genius! The actual repair tools and healing disks still seem more potent for actual healing, but crucially, I'm still doing damage to the enemy when I use it, which is very important in smaller groups and duoing. All in all, a very clever idea - Nifty, almost! Can be a bit of an ammo-hog though.
The Injector Gun is the Biotech's weapon, and is a lot like the Space Syringes you see on many Sci-fi shows - click-hiss! This one was clearly designed by a madman however, as it is capable of delivering 25ccs of Undisclosed Green Serum X a staggering 50 feet, presumably for those more needle-phobic...er... patients. It also comes in a kind of insane 'defibrillator' variant, which swaps the green goo for a good 50,000 volts where it'll do the most good, although quite when one would be required to restart someone's heart from 50ft away, is a chapter I've yet to reach in my AFS Medical Textbooks.
They seem a bit wimpey at first glance, but the virulent version ignores armour entirely, and the electric one is a damage type that many things are quite weak to. I think both seem to have a mild short-lived damage over time effect as well - hard to tell. Surprisingly powerful, although they have a tendency to overheat more than other weapons, so something to look out for.
Our latest Torcastra run was as hectic as ever - that 20 minute timed rampage at the start with the mortars, being the worst bit. A lot of frantic Chaingunnery on my friend's part, and me learning, at the very sharp end, the vagaries of being a healer in TR.
It's quite a tricky business actually, mostly due to the FPS nature of basic gameplay. You can't just hammer F2 through F6, and then blast off a heal and have it go automatically where it's needed, and instead have to actually point the healing devices at the patient, in-world. Fortunately, just as you can't accidentally shoot your own team, you can't accidentally heal the enemy, but unusually in games of this kind, the healer does need to be a fairly good shot as well. Depending on how hyperactive one's more front-line combatant compatriots are, this can be a bit of a headache, and the less potent AoE heal tools might be a better bet. Even with those, you still need to be near enough.
Swapping to the Leechgun became essential for the Bosses, there only being the two of us for damage, and in real panic, the Logos Ability 'Reconstruction', a kind of AoE heal-pulse, saved us from the brink on a number of occasions. All very hectic, and a far cry form the usual 'heal-bot' gameplay so lamented in the more usual Holy Trinity Class Based MMO. We still wiped a couple of times mind you, (leaving me, the only one who can resurrect, to run all the way from the start, while my lazy Ranger friend just lay there, counting down the mission timer at me!), but not so often that we couldn't kill all four mortars in the 20 mins allowed. We literally finished with seconds to spare, which my colleague calls 'exciting', and made me nearly ended up having to use my Defibrillator Pistol on myself by the end of it all!
Quite looking forward to settling on a character, any character, and pressing on to beyond Crucible, actually!
Also we took time out to have a look at the new boxing arena, added this week in the patch. A curious thing, it takes the form of an entirely new map, with teleport connections from a variety of AFS bases; a bit like City of Heroes' "Pocket D" nightclub thing, (So good as a travel route, if nothing else). Inside is a boxing ring, with plenty of room for spectators. A vendor sells the gloves, helmet and some very natty trunks, all for nominal amounts of cash and in you go. The boxing just uses the already existing Duel option, rather than being a spatially flagged FFA PvP option, but the gloves are the clever bit, being a new kind of weapon, doing, well, point blank melee damage, based on the wearer's level.
We went a few rounds, with me consistently losing. I was even a level above my Ranger opponent, but found myself bare able to dent them, and going down myself in five or six hits. I think the problem was stat spending on my part. I've gone with lots of points in The One That Makes My Logos Abilities Do Lots of Damage/Healing, while my opponent is mostly spent in The One The Gives You Lots Of Hitpoints. This basically makes them far more robust than frail old me, and while not restricted by the game, there does seem to be house rules forming up already among the frequenters of the ring. For example, the use of a massive psychic lightning blasts (Which I'm quite powerful at) to even the odds would be frowned on, and most certainly is not Queensbury Rules! Similarly, the chap who leapt into the ring in full power-armour and toting a flamethrower and exploding shrapnel bursts, got a bit of a frosty reception, and strangely enough, no duel accepts!
I take it in good grace; it's a bit of fun, but suspect anyone wishing to make a regular thing of the boxing ring should probably create a dedicated clone for the very purpose, able to respend attribute points specifically to become a good boxer. Without a respec, I'm not sure I could win that fight. While there were a few low-levels like us duking it out, the main event did seem to be the Lv50 crowd going mano-a-mano, and most likely dedicated pugilist clones at that. The thing could also do with a 'block' of some sort, (perhaps as a RMB 'Ability', free to all, that uses Logos Power or Adrenaline?) which it appears not to currently have, but I'm quite impressed with how they've managed to make a fun sport, without having to rewrite the entire of how combat works, mostly through the boxing gloves themselves.
I'm also impressed that it was done at all. Turns out that many of the community had already been doing this on some kind of 'Friday Fight Nights', only completely unsupported, just at some normal base, and having to pistol-whip each other for want of a decent fist attack. A patch or two later, the devs give them an entire arena zone for the very purpose - gloves and all. While it might be argued that there are more 'important' things for them to be getting on with, this kind of very hands-on involvement in player's lives and activities does them enormous credit, and makes me much more optimistic about TR's future, than I might otherwise be. There is never going to be 'enough' end-game content, ever, but the odd quirky addition like this can do wonders for morale, I think...