Greycat

As in live accounts or former homecoming account? Live account is a no go. Full stop. As far as accounts here? If you have the old installation around somewhere, the account name should actually show up in a folder under "Accounts." (If you don't, well... I'm sure a GM would be along - or click "Support" up top to put in a request.)

Do this - and stick to it. Some people have set this up in the past - I'm sure there are threads. But get a set of die, or a random number generator. First number? AT. (Skip Kheldians and VEATs - well, don't *skip* them, give them a try, just don't use them for this.) Second number? Depends on how many choices there are for the AT, but primary powerset. Third number? Secondary powerset. Don't look up builds or anything. But commit to playing this to at least 35 (though 50's ideal.) Some will be *really* rough, some will be incredibly easy. Alternately? Give yourself a "One of every #####" challenge - one of every melee primary, but using different ATs. One of every some-power-type - say, electric (control, melee, armor, blast, support....) - paired with like powers or not. Or something like one of every control set to 50 (got through all the Control sets on live once... then they introduced ELectric. I *did* get that to 50 too...) On live, I used to do reverse-"flavor of the month" or "right FOTM, wrong AT." For instance, fire/kin controllers were a thing. Well, I had a fire/kin... corrupter. Or play a kin/fire tank. Energy/Ice was a FOTM blaster (dont' recall if that was just PVP or not,) I ran Ice/Energy just because. Or just come up with your own little challenge. Powers are whatever you want them to be. And sometimes what you recolor them to be. I've seen Dark Armor, for instance, get recolored to be "Sand." Go Desert power. Yeah, it's one "lore-bit" I wish they'd remove - "Dark gets its power from the netherworld" in some descriptions, since I've seen it also IC explained as, say, clouds of nanites for bots/dark MMs (for instance.) Your powers are whatever you decide they are.

Depends on the character. Sometimes the AT. Blueside? I typically skip DFBs these days, one run at most. Hit Habashy's arc, get the teleporter by getting all the Atlas explore badges (and hit the plaques while I'm at it,) grab an ouro portal to get the echo:atlas badges - either then or some other time, honestly. Then it depends on the character... part of why I like blueside and all the "duplicate" zones is that I can pick my own path. Hollows? Sure! Beat stuff up in Perez? Sure. Hit the arcs in KR? Might just fit! Each character gets their own progression with what feels right, contact wise. The only real major "Do I run this..." I can think of is running Magic characters through Croatoa. Which gets them to 32 or 33, typically. With that nice story zone bonus at the end. Other than that, my characters could be anywhere. Redside... eh. Since it doesn't really have that, and I don't care for a lot of the "You're a lackey, you're an idiot" writing, or the environment, I don't play it much. I have redsiders, but the sameness just leads to burnout quickly. I will tend to run Radio, though. And I've enjoyed Efficiency Expert Pither's challenges... Goldside... mostly just cry as the 50th ambush comes for my level 4 whatever... or grumble as I'm told to pick flowers for whatserface. Khelds, I'm often doing the Kheldian War arc on top of everything else. VEATS... I'm doing their arc to level 10 to get the costume slot, then probably getting them farmed past that stupid level 24 forced-respec, if not farther. I don't like the forced respec, and don't like their story arcs past... eh-20ish. (I *have* played them, yes. It's why this is now almost guaranteed to be a farmed character to some degree... that plus the mid to later arcs just felt thrown together.)

Wouldn't hold my breath.

So a few thoughts on this: With the last point first, "that doesn't matter when you can't afford to buy them?" Well, they ... drop. As you play the game. If a new player gets sucked into a DFB instead of running missions? They drop as a reward there, too. And... sell for more than TOs did, which will help later affordability (even ignoring non obvious things like "use those first merits to buy converters to drop on the AH for the first several hundred thousand to million inf," which no, no new player should be expected to know about.) Also, we outpaced TOs to where they felt like a hinderance and drop-trash *really* quickly on live... and we outpace them even *faster* here, even without XP boosts on servers, 2xp and the like. Which might seem like an argument *for* TOs - it doesn't "hurt" as much financially when you see you have a bunch of grey TOs - but those grey DOs and SOs still sell for more. As far as clearly saying what they do? I hover over it, it says whatever-the-name, (what it does.) Xenon Exposure (Damage.) Amulet (Recharge.) No digging. And by hovering over it, it ALSO has in bright red text a warning you can't use it if the origin doesn't match - IE, "Hey, sell me for money to buy what you need!" The stores? Unless you explicitly tell it otherwise, they don't *show* you enhancements you can't use. And, I'd argue, having the SOs available from level 1, even if you can't buy them, means the player gets used to *what does what* for their character. They don't *have* to go from "Training: Accuracy" to "I'm looking for a Visor now" to "Wait, it's called Insight of Grey now?" They can see that in the store right away. Which I'd argue makes it *easier* for a new player. There's also "you can quickly find out it's not for you" - you're not necessarily going to know *right off the bat* that a hold enhancement, *whatever* it's called, isn't for you. Until you go to slot it and see nothing lighting up that takes it. And that'll happen regardless of if it's called Hold or Stickiness of Frank or whatever. (And a Tank, for instance, *can* use a hold. For instance, Super Strength - Knockout Blow - not a power most SS users would skip - takes Hold enhancements. Ice tanks have holds. And so forth.) Visor (Accuracy) is the very first thing listed - it's the only thing you see in the store, none of the flavor text, and it's the very topmost line if you hover over it - you don't have to dig through flavor text. Or dragging another example from an in game character right now - "Xenon Exposure (Damage) Enhances Damage (in case the "Damage" at the end didn't give that away first.) Experiment (Science) Exposure to Xenon gas has enabled you to augment the damage of one of your attack powers. Increases damage by 33.3%. You cannot use this enhancement because of your Magic origin." You see the name, what it does. A second line saying basically what it does. A line giving origin. As far as "flavor text," it's ... one sentence. Then *again* saying what it does with more detail. And then a line that only shows up if you *can't* use it, and why. Now, arguably, that "you cannot use" line should show up earlier, but... I don't see what would be confusing about this to a new player. And as they look, oh, it's red. They have others that are red and do the same thing. Red must increase damage! Honestly, I'd say calling this such a big problem for new players is doing new players a disservice.

I'm not referring to badges at all - honestly wouldn't care. Just a counterpoint to any idea of tying powers/benefits (like the END, hold, etc.) to it.

Part of the issue with this is that we have tons of ckaracters created now, and unlike slots, pools or power selections in a set, origin is baked in and cannot be changed. I wouldnt mind seeing more done with origins, but it would likely be more like origin specific contacts, arcs or dialog.

Homecoming now has a license, this isn't a "Reboot." NCSoft isn't doing anything regarding development - they're (from how it sounds) getting a licensing fee from HC. As far as new content? We've already been *getting* new content for the past several years. Is it *fast,* no - but it's developed and tested. Don't forget, this is a strictly volunteer team. They're not being paid by NCSoft now, they're not really that large, this is not (and can't be) like live with an entire internal team of coders, artists, QA, the original tools/plugins, etc. working 40(+) hour weeks on this. So - and I'd say this in genral - temper your expectations. What sort of things can you expect to see? New content? (story arcs, for example?) Certainly. We've gotten them before, just look through the pages/issues notes. New zones? I'm *leaning* on "probably not," I don't know what tools the team has to say yes or no to that. Though they *can* edit the zones (see AE removal from Atlas/Mercy.) Endgame content? Depends what you mean by it. We have harder and harder modes (with rewards!) for existing TFs (and new ones - you'll see Dr. Aeon advertised in LFG, for instance) for those needing more of a challenge, for instance. A brand new *raid?* I don't know how much more that takes vs. a story arc (and they'd have to place it somewhere.) We'll never have so much content that you won't run out. It'll take a bit, but even on live they couldn't do that. I've played enough that my "content" is whatever I create in AE and/or RP - lots of RP.

If they're running DFBs? Probably under an hour. Especially on the servers with the temporary XP boost... which, honestly, I think is probably a disservice to new players, but at least they make some INF on those, versus using the 2xp booster.

... also until level 10, your costume changes are free. Take advantage.

No worries, sounded like I needed to clear that up.

Oh, wait. We're completely misunderstaning the OP. Sally needs to distract those that want to boop, punch, blast, etc her ... so she'll yell out how long 'til Adamastor can be summoned again. Sally gets an Adamastor timer. *nods*

Honestly, a lot of mine lately have been ... name-names. That or me being a smartass and using just general wordplay... which I've done since live. Rez Dispenser? Celery? Sweet Child o'Mimes? Rusty Muffler (created because someone said nobody would name a character that... so, name and backstory created...) Assume Reposition? (Mostly there for MSRs - Grav 'dom with Wormhole *and* fold space. And teleport target, yes.) Only the tip of the iceberg...

Most of what I "emote" is just using /em does whatever. However, as for emotes I use? Dance. Sometimes with one specifically selected. Since there's a weekly get together every thursday, I'm guaranteed to be doing that at least once a week. Drink, food, wintermug. General "interact with the environment" stuff - various sits, swoon, collapse, liedown. Other than that... I don't think I use that many on a regular basis.

That's why it's not using the phasing, and why you're based in the ... er, base. You're just going out into a new mission map, not the zone itself.

Since this came up in discussion elsewhere... kind of a runthrough of the existing PVP zones and what it might look like. First thing, no, this is not replacing the PVP zones. The PVP zones stay as is, dedicated for PVP (though some overhauls need to be done in some - specifically Siren's (a) needs better rewards, because working for a bunch of rep being turned in for an SO or insp is ridiculous, and (B) watching two groups stare at each other for 20 minutes before charging in and having one randomly win is boring... but that's a separate discussion.) A separate copy - or copies - for PVE story missions, however, could work. Also, no, the PVE zones don't get the PVP rewards, or if they get something similar, not at the same strength. They'll have story arcs, after all - there'll be piles of merits involved. 3-4 arcs, with merit reward, plus if you do them all iin each zone, it's treated like a story zone and you get an extra bonus set of merits the first time you finish. So you're already getting fairly well rewarded. Potential reward: Much as I hate to say it... some other sort of merit. At the end you can get a PVE one-use version of the Shivan, or a weaker Nuke, or if you get all the zones, a sort of "chronal mech." Refresh said mech by building merits back up, or hitting the side-contact in each zone and doing something for them again. (Or just one, but the refresh is weaker.) Yes, reachable through ouro. Each PVE zone also auto-exemps you down to the appropriate level, just like the PVP zones. Not all are co-op. Some just don't have a threat that would make one side (mostly) ignore the other being there, after all. But we'll deal zone by zone. Why do this? Because the person who commented about there being story potential was right. There is lore there, there are even instances for some missions that use some of the factions. But I want to do this in a way that makes sense for each zone. And I won't argue with more story, redside won't argue with more zones, and badgers won't argue about more badges, I'm sure. 🙂 Getting there: Both base teleporters and just a specific PVE-zone menu, or at least *VERY CLEARLY MARKED* PVE vs PVP zone listing, in the existing helicopters and zone entrances. Overall rewards: The PVE zones get their own explore badges - mind you, I'd be happy to have the ones for Piratical moved to the PVE zone (think those are mostly history badges) and anything for PVE accolades done so as well. PVEers who just want that and don't want to touch PVP thus have them moved somewhere they don't have to worry about it. Otherwise, the PVE zones get their own history badges. If there are separate hero and villain zones, they do the "name switches with side" thing. For the "I got the sets!" folks - IF someone gets them *all,* PVE and PVP, yes - just like Atlas and Echo:Atlas, there's another badge. If someone has all of one type (PVE or PVP,) there's a badge for that, as well. Just because. That's on top of the prior story zone arc reward system. So, zone by zone.... Bloody Bay Side: Co-op. Threat: Shivans, primarily. We know there's Shivan lore. There's Shivan vs Neoshivan lore, touched on only in the tutorial and Drowning in Blood. Main threat is the SHivans and whatever they're bringing. The theme is based around death/spirits - as the Thorns, Pantheon and even ghosts are there. Perhaps whatever is going on with the Shivans rising and using the dead is affecting them. You find out what it is and fix it. Side missions for all four sides - not repeatable contacts throwing out newspaper missions, but a single contact for each alignment giving *an* arc (optional) that's appropriate for each alignment. Villains go for power, possibly. Rogue, for whoever's the highest bidder. Hero to stop things, Vig to "do what has to be done" and more violently stop things from getting out of hand. But the main missions should be enough of a threat that the siides would work together, versus fight them. They want to fight, use the PVP zone. Siren's Call: Side: Individual instances Threat: Custom. There's just not a *threat* in Siren's Call that would get the two sides working together that I can see. What happened, happened already. There's just a question of profit, finding Randall's lost treasures, or blueside investigating (maybe to clear up exactly what happened with Sunburst.) ... for the heck of it, add both some goverment agents (some TLAs investigating) as well as Spetznaz, from redside, on both sides zones. The latter already exists but is used... I think in one arc. Again, side missions for all alignments in the appropriate zones. "Grey siders" probably benefit the most here, if the missions are different for them depending on which side they start from. Warburg Side: Co-op Threat: Rogue Arachnos, Malta C'mon, they have a nuke. And bio and chem labs. And delivery systems. That's enough to put things aside and work together... At least for now. (More side missions per alignment, of course.) Recluse's Victory Side: Individual blue/red sides. Incarnate powers allowed. Threat: Time. Custom mobs. RV's probably the hardest one to do, and the one that would take the most work. To keep the flavor, I'd really want to have the zone switching sides between missions, like it does for the PVP zones depending on who wins. But I'd hate to see just how far the (already kind of irritating) phasing tech in game now can be pushed before it breaks, so... You don't actually go to RV. You go to your staging area. You can't co-op, because you can't communicate easily with, much less *reach,* the other side. The whole war over the future has managed to destabilize something *badly* and it's going crazy out there. The troops out there are affected. You exit your base into... whichever "future" is currently taking part for that mission. The mobs, the Phalanx or Patrons? They're affected if they're in zone... and they aren't themselves, but some mix of the two and something else. You have no support out there from Longbow or Arachnos, past JUST the outside of the little time bubble that was formed in the base. Sometimes it'll be a hero-aligned zone... sort of. At least clean and shiny... some of the banners may be wrong, though, and *those aren't the Longbow you know.* Sometimes it'll be an Arachnos victory you step out into... bbut they're changed too. It'll actually swap or change between missions. Might even have a buff - or debuff - depending on what side controls what. The "win" condition is basically "I can't really say it's a *win,* player, the war continues... but at least it's as stable as it ever was." (This is also probably the only time you can exit into a (***CLEARLY MARKED***) PVP zone portal if you want - or just go back to the PVE zones.)

Rudra got to it first. Think there'd have to be more of an overhaul for that, though I don't know how doable patterns would be (using "chest detail.") Maybe? And 100% for the hawaiian shirts, lei... if the grass skirts could be done well, that too (and stereotypical coconut bra, because.) Heck, floral "crown" while we're at it.

I don't know, we've already got a bunch of defensive sets. However, as a graphics option for some? We've got bubbles, we've got the sonic shields, if it's just wanting something themed that'd probably be a ... not overly difficult thing to do. Add them to invuln, for instance, for the people who don't want the rainbows?

I'm ... fairly sure it always was. Otherwise players would have found ways to turn Croatoa into another PVP zone to keep *anyone* else on the team from getting credit back when she was on a ... what was it, multi *hour* timer?

Eh, the way I've pretty much always approached it - and which really fits more in with the game itself - is that you *cannot* balance COH, class to class, just due to the wide variety of powersets within each class. We've never really had definitive discussions saying THIS AT is better than THAT AT 100% of the time. It's This powerset pairing, pools and build does well *here,* has weaknesses *there.* It's one of those differences of COH... you don't end up as "Level 28 Fighter #20893721312" playing with "Level 32 Mage #987230948723" that has probably the same, limited equipment choices as every OTHER fighter or mage in that range. For COH, I've always seen PVP balance as "bring a team and cover each others weaknesses." I keep mentioning this, but way back on live I ended up with a PVP PUG of myself (fire/kin corrupter, I beliieve,) at least one dom and I *think* another corr... and we held the zone because we just complemented each other so well we could pick off singles/duos/etc. that kept coming until it became a good team and a half or two teams finally rushing and overwhelming anything we could do. Yeah, I've had my share of 1v1 fights, as well, but that "held the zone" in Siren's is just one of the things I remember quite fondly. (This was... pre IO-craziness, pre I13 changes, of course. Nobody was capped-everything, perma-everything.) I have many issues with VEATs - I *play* them, mind, one of my mains is one because the powersets fit the character - but the storyline is the only part that ever actually got me angry in COH, to where I just play it to 10 to get the costume slot and ignore the rest of it. (I could do without the forced-respec-at-24 nonsense, for instance.) That said... well, the faction *is* used elsewhere a bit (WWD, I believe, for starters,) there's specific plot (the whole Jade Spider thing) ending in SIren's... as long as we're just talking an alternative story-based zone, having an *option* going in to if it's the PVP or PVE zone, PVP being exactly as it is now, PVE being like Croatoa or Faultline with zone arcs and a final zone reward (but not the same, or same strength, shivan/nuke/etc. rewards) wouldn't be bad. There's a whole lore basis for why Siren's is the way it is, after all, that could be explored. (It might come off *somewhat* the same as some of what's in Faultline, granted.) The main issue I have with that is that there'd either have to be separate hero and villain zones, or there'd have to be a damned good reason why SuperHer0icDude can't stop EvilB4dM4n when they see each other in zone, and I don't think most (maybe Warburg has this in Rogue Arachnos and Malta, but probably not BB and certainly not Siren's) really have a good baked in reason for it. Have to chew on it a bit.

1. You don't have to CM everyone. Melee has their own mez defense, for instance, and especially later in the game there's so *much* defense a mez doesn't land that often these days. 2. It's already fairly powerful, letting people *completely ignore* the majority of mezzes in the game. There should be some cost to it. A single click, at most seven times, every few minutes isn't that big of a deal. I just can't agree it's "time consuming." It's click-bam-done, it doesn't have a multi-second animation or anything.

While I've already agreed - no PVP in the PVE zones - I've got to give some of the "other side" here, too. Someone enters a PVP zone. There's a countdown, a big warning that players can attack you, etc. They go in and get killed... *and start cussing out the PVPer for PVPing in one of the few PVP areas* because "I wasn't here to PVP!" - getting badges or whatever. And almost universally, *whatever the PVPer says is wrong,* they're evil, they're "gankers," "I'm gonna report you," etc, etc, etc. They were supposed to *completely ignore their preferred playstyle, in one of the few, typically dead areas they can enjoy it,* so this one person (who never bothered saying anything, the majority of the time) can do ... whatever "I'm calling it PVE" thing they want to do. (I'll be honest here, it seemed like it was *massively* badger-vs-PVPer where PVPers were told they were evil and shouldn't be allowed to do what the zone's intended for because the badgers were *obviously* supposed to have priority with what *they* wanted to do instead.) PVPers circle the wagons around their fellow PVPers? Damn right. Because that's what PVPers tend to face. They deal with their community internally - if someone really is being an asshat, they find themselves "out." And in a community as small as the COH PVP community is? That's very out. To where, yes, at least in zones back in the day you'd find them being warned about and *the other side helped out* to drive the toxic person away. Note, I'm not talking a bit of trash talk. Or something said in frustration or celebration. I'm not talking "you teleported me into mines and a stalker!" Or just existing as a stalker. Or just trying to PVP in one of the few places that lets people, with one of the few people actually showing up in that zone. (Yes, I've seen or had *all* these things considered "toxic," so I tend to be ... a bit skeptical of the label when applied to PVPers here.) Not saying that's what Rudra does - I don't know, never encountered them in that situation - but there's been historically a *lot* of unfair hate of anyone interested in PVP, and PVP in general, in COH, and a lot of unfair labeling of people involved in it since live.

Only time I can think of / absolutely say for sure this happened was in the COV beta, when we were trying out... might have been Bloody Bay, I don't even remember. Since everyone was testing villainside, they hopped on signature characters or random "Agent XXXXXX" Longbow, and groups of players would gang up on them. (I know II have screenshots of this *somewhere,* danged if I can find them though.)

... part of the reason we have lists of "Does this in PVP, does that in PVE" for powers. And additional set bonuses on the PVP IOs. We used to *have* just one set of rules and one build, and before we really got crazy with IOs - well, you could basically "balance" by having a team. I've still never done a "PVP build," really - used to not need one, now I'm just not interested. Now, no, I wouldn't really go up against someone with a "PVP build." Kind of sad about that, really. I liked having straight-boring-builds that could pull things off - like my energy/energy brute who just dedicated a slot to stuns in whatever attacks took them. Got cussed out a few times for that (along with "Damn stalker!" ... which usually got a laugh and a "Stalker? Where?" in reply.) Or just the long, neverending fight between my ma/regen stalker and a ma/regen scrapper 'til we just nodded and bowed out. Those were fun...

1. Random chance of playing Statesman, etc... why would I want to? I've got a ton of my own characters that I'm actually invested in. This isn't (say) a Marvel game where the draw is specifically "Play as X!" with a ton of characters. Part of the draw of COH is that you're your *own* character - just see how popular the costume creator, even with its limitations, is. Besides, you already *can* for some of the characters, sort of - several have their own "personal story missions." They're scripted, of course, as they're meant to tell a snippet of a story. Didn't get far with them before sunset, though. But it prevents - say - StatesmanPlayer1 from running into StatesmanPlayer2 doing un-Statesman things to STatesmanPlayer3. The rest? Saying this as someone who loved zone PVP back in the day and has enjoyed the little bit I've run into here (mostly because people weren't taking it super seriously,) ... moving it to PVE zones in any form is a *huge* no. YOu can probably tell that just from the responses so far. Doing some of the things mentioned in PVP zones, though - sure. (They've got to be better than the Siren's Call battles, for instance, which are really boring setpieces with the two sides staring at each other for 20 minutes before just rushing in.) As far as controlled communication - one, that's not really been an issue here (and the worst, well, that's what an ignore list is for,) and two, I don't like "catchphrases" for this for the same reason I don't like a lot of the villain morality/alignment missions - they don't reflect what my character would say or do *at all.* "Reported in forum lists" - no thanks.