PaxArcana

Thanks for teh correction, JusticeBeliever. Original post edited accordingly. :) And, I've just checked my sole character off of Torchbearer (a Gravity/Time controller on Indomitable). Yep, as I remembered, Global channels are cross-server.

The answer is the command /bindload_file <filename>. So, for the Flares / Icepatch example ... you have two separate files, each with a single line: numpad1 powexec_name Ice Patch $$bindload_file c:\coxbinds\>charactername>\flare.txt numpad1 powexec_name Flare $$bindload_file c:\coxbinds\>charactername>\patch.txt Hit the 1 on your numberpad, Ice Patch goes off ... and a keybind file is loaded, over-writing the bind for that key. Hit it again, and Flare goes off ... and the first keybind file is re-loaded, over-writing the bind for that key. :)

Play a Mastermind. Make some friends. Talk to them about doing a "dynamic duo" setup, and playing those characters together. Alternately, maybe a Power Pool, with a summon and two or three upgrade powers, sort of an "MM-Lite" approach. Possibly several Pools, to give some variety in Sidekick choice. Basically crib the system from CO. Something for SG bases. Essentially, more trophies as placeable objects - something gained at the end of each story arc (I think we already get a Clue sort of thing, yes?).

Oh, don't get me wrong, Philotic. I know a lot of things are often quite difficult, even if the person suggesting it doesn't know how or why that is. But just tossing the SCR out at them, by itself, is not helpful - even if they come right out and say "it'd be easy". Not as a first response, anyway. Better, instead, would be to do as you just did: point out the parts of it that would be hard, and/or, just take more time and effort than the end result would ever be worth. And like I said, I've seen people use it purely as a way to shut down an idea entirely, no matter what the reality of that thing's difficulty might be. Including, in my example, when I suggested "look into whether or not you can adapt this section of code that you already have to solve this somewhat similar problem". :) ... To be clear, I'm not arguing against the SCR. I'm only arguing against using it - or letting others use it - as a way to shut down suggestions entirely. It should rarely, if ever, be the first response to someone's idea. Even, as i say, if they make the cardinal error of suggesting "it will be easy". :)

Global channels are supposed to be, well, Global. Most of my characters are on Tochbearer, but I've got an alt on one of the other servers. I'll check to see if he's got access to the channel too, to be sure. That does mean, of course, that when looking for a group on the TP channel, one should specify a few things: Your Level Red, Blue, or Gold side Server Type of missions planned (e.g. radio/paper, a TF, etc)

Okay, so I've created a Global Channel, named Temporary Powers, to help people connect with others who want to team up, but often play only in short bursts. Sort of a "looking for short-term team" channel. Thing is, right now there's only two of us. It'll only be useful when there's a bunch of folks using it. The channel is public, open to one and all. Just type /chan_join Temporary Powers, say hello, and maybe we can get some teams rolling. :)

+1 I think this would actually make a good Sentinel-specific set. More ranged than melee, but, not as MUCH range as Blaster sets.

However, too many people use the unknown difficulty in exactly that manner. ... For myself, I don't say "... and it'll be easy" when making a suggestion. But I have said, in the past, "that shouldn't be too difficult" ... and been right. Even, to the point of helping shape CoX. Does anyone remember the problems people with AoE Stealth powers were causing, by griefing people trying to interact with Zone or Mission objectives? When being Stealthed simply made it so you weren't allowed to interact at all? I think Warburg was a big place that happened, you'd get people standing near the launch console with their AoE Stealth on, and no-one on the same "side" could then interact with the console at all. For a couple weeks, this was a huge problem and the developers were unsure how to proceed. My suggestion was, simply: "you already have the code for Travel Power suppression. It shouldn't be too difficult to re-use that, to suppress Stealth when interacting with objectives; balance is preserved, with not being able to stealth glowies. Griefing is eliminated, with not being able to use AoE stealth to prevent others from using glowies. Everyone wins." I of course got SCR'd for saying that. But, two or three days later, guess what happened in a patch? Yeah. :) ... So, even some of us non-coders actually are cognizant of when something actually does stand a fair chance of being "not too difficult". Thus, that Standard Code Rant shouldn't be hauled out every time someone talks about how easy/difficult it would or wouldn't be to accomplish something.

I'll send you an invite to the new Channel, and the Supergroup, next time I'm on Torchbearer. :) I need folks good for a few random missions now and then, too! :)

Ladies, Gentlemen, and other Sophonts, I give you: Temporary Powers Right, so, "be the change you want to see" ... I've gone and created a SG (on Torchbearer for now, which is where I have an alt), and a Global Channel. My global is @PaxArcana ... hit me up, and let's make this thing work. :)

:) :) :) Now, that's an awesome memory! Thanks for sharing it with us! :) :) :)

I did not know this! :) Definitely just one, because I'm sure people would eventually have alts on multiple servers - if nothing else, so that if someone was LFT on one, and nobody responded, you could say "lemme relog to my character on that server" and bam, team!

uuuuh, no? :D Mostly you'd've known me from the forums. I was a cranky, cantankerous git back then.

That is the flaw with MMOs. All of them, not just CoV: the players never have true agency. Player villains cannot formulate their own plots, cannot start their own organizations and make a play for power in the Rogue Isles (nor in Paragon City). We only get to rob a bank, when someone else TELLS us to. We only get to steal a magical artifact, when someone else TELLS us to. Because the game centers on Quests, and Quest-givers. Heroes are similar. Aside from "street sweeping", Heroes can't be proactive - they're not going to be rolling up a hundred Hellions, in order to get a lead on X or Y criminal activity going down somewhere in the city. Unless someone specifically tells them to. (Which is what the Radio and Newspaper _really_ are: just another Contact, offering a choice of missions ... but not stuff YOU, yourself, actually thought up.) ... The technology in CoX is .... dated. It already was, really, the day the game launched. There isn't the ability, AFAIK, to (other than very messily) put in decision points, where a story-arc can branch in multiple different directions. ... My first MM back in the NCSoft/Paragon days, was Core Protocol. My concept was that he was a Paragon Police Department experiment, a law-enforcement AI in a robotic shell, that went off the rails. His idea of "enforcing the law" was more Rorschach than super-duper-cop: the whole of humanity was detestably mired in sin and lawlessness, and had to be PUNISHED. When humans were eradicated, all of them, the machines would take their place - and their programming would not PERMIT deviant behavior. On that day, CP's primary directive would be fulfilled. But, of course, there was and is no way for me, the player, to pursue that ultimate goal. I can't try to steal WMDs. I can't try to amass enough financial resources to build a base in which to manufacture WMDs of my own. I can't do anything, except ... ... ... what a quest-giver explicitly tells me I can do. Because this is an MMO, not a single-player sandbox. ... As for being forced to do this? You can auto-complete those missions. In the meantime, you can find a different contact, and do what THEY tell you to, instead. :)

The most plausible is simply that NCSoft never understood the game. They're a Korean MMO company; all their other games are Korean style team-or-die, endgame-is-all slogfests. CoX wasn't, and never would be. They didn't understand that CoX could have remained a (modestly) profitable, stable source of income for another decade - and that a CoX II would have been the same thing. Essentially, a surefire, safe-bet investment. But the executives at NCSoft didn't understand it; the things that made it successful here in the U.S., would have bombed in Korea. They literally didn't know what they had. So they killed it.

HOLY CARP, I REMEMBER YOU! :D :D Long time no see, man!

You know what? We need a Supergroup ...! One especially for people who play 1, 2, 3 missions then log off for a while, before coming back again in an hour. Or, really, two - one Blueside, one Redside. And a global channel to communicate and coordinate with. How about Part-Time Heroes//Villains, and just part-time for a channel? Then folks like the OP can find team-mates who, like him (and to be honest, like me) drop in and out of CoX all day long, with no fuss. :)

RE: Bodyguard I understand now. I've played MMs since they first were made, but ... all my MMs were "I'll stand over here while my minions do all the heavy lifting" non-attack types, so I never needed to learn what that was. :)

::applause::

When your pets attack an enemy who is +6 to them, they suffer -30% to hit. Just from the level imbalance. Lieutenants, Bosses, Elite bosses, and Archvilains also impose penalties To-Hit. That's just for starters. ... And seriously, if you dial the Notoriety meter up that high, that you're facing +4's ... you're bending the system so hard, you should NOT be surprised if something breaks. Only yourself to blame, really.

Yes, I seriously would. Those characters are VILLAINS, by their very definition, evil. As for my personal line? There is one - some things would serve as triggers - but I'm not going to explain, because the causes behind them are quite intensely personal. Nonetheless, as long as that sort of content wasn't required to advance, I wouldn't insist it be changed or removed. Because I can easily separate the fantasy of the game, from the reality of the world around me. That's a little trick I picked up from forty-plus years of playing games like Dungeons & Dragons. Speaking of which, I have played actual, "needs to eat the living flesh of sentient beings" undead in D&D. And in Shadowrun, for that matter. And oh hell, anything in the World of Darkness array of games. (I should also point out, flipside, that I have played literal Angelic beings, along with more mortal champions of Justice and Good.)

What do you mean, "bodyguard mode" ...? The former would achieve the latter. Also, +1 I don't agree. We get so MANY pets, that effectively, MM's already exceed anyone else's damage cap (when you add all the pets' DPS together). +1 - especially since Pet damage sets include Recharge enhancements. Or, alternately, let us slot Health enhancements to increase pet health. Hmm. Or maybe just reduce the damage they do to pets?

Pets, Buffs, CC, and naught else. :) That's how I roll MMs ...

GOOD GRIEF. Is it a story about something horrible happening? YES, yes it is. Should it therefor be changed? NO, not only because of that! IT. IS. A. VILLAIN. STORY. And, seriously, it isn't even the kind of nasty squick story that would be truly hard for the majority of people to play through. It's petty insecurity and fragile masculinity taken much too far. And that's all it is. Honestly, I wish there were MORE stories where you were asked to do truly despicable deeds. When I play a villain, I want him or her (or it - some of my characters are robots, after all) to be completely effing EVIL. CoV usually only gives is the Kick the Dog level of villainy. MEH.

My advice is to maybe try finding people in-game, who can be open-minded about a drop-in/drop-out player like you say you are. And who won't be all must be maximum efficiency or DIE!!!!one!!11!! either. Team with them when you're on, to get through those 30s. :)