KauaiJim

Thanks for explaining further Herotu. I get what you are saying (or at least think I do). Yeah, I believe what you are talking about is a two-fold thing. For one, mmo's are large scale complex software that has to do a lot of communicating. On the server side it gets impacted by load and network conditions. On 'our' end it's our pc and home network. A lot of variables. If you want to get an idea of what's going on server-side, there are fully built servers out there you can deploy yourself (ourodev). I think the term spaghetti code is sort of fitting also. Any time you get software this big with this many fingers in the pie you get a lot of stuff that is shoved in, glued on and made to work you get all kinds of areas where touching one thing affects another. That hot mess usually is rather delicate to start playing around with. So there's that part of it. Secondly, I believe mmo's in general sort of evolved from games like Might & Magic (which came from D & D) which were all turn based games. I think Hew might be on to something there. As mmo's evolved it seems to me like they sort of kept that turn based feel even though it's live action. It might be something that's just baked-in by the very nature of the beast itself. There is a very distinct different feeling between say Super Pickle running up and bonking some ruffian clowns on the head versus say me running around in a war scenario trying to sneak up on an enemy an put two in his chest before he puts two in my head or a sniper vaporizes my noodle. Call of Duty and other console games like that are better designed for that kind of twitchy hold your breath instant reaction to others type of thing. Consoles have the SERIOUS advantage of being a more controlled and standardized hardware (and software) platform. While console platforms are very realistic visually and feel more touchy fast response wise the trade off is that pc games for me are infinitely more flexible and have more options and more to do. So, I actually prefer CoH playing just the way it does. I will say though there are times when standard mmo lag can be annoying but overall it doesn't bother me too much. As far as shots chasing mobs, I always find that humorous. I dunno, just me I guess. 😁

“Say hello to my little friend...” the ‘Tesseract’. Also the name of my super group.

Laserblast - Wikipedia Ishtar (film) - Wikipedia What's the third? lol

Ah - playing it safe! But you are still taking a huge risk! You should have capped it at 3!!! 🤪

DSL was considered broadband. I believe the reference to dial-up was to the 56kbps (or less) days. Or perhaps that is what the OP meant, however (usually) DSL was much faster than dial-up. Possibly it was just a loose reference to this being an older mmo, but it is inaccurate. When dial-up was still a thing the internet was mostly bulletin boards and AOL. Predates CoH by a little bit... The rest of that sentence "where lag was enormous and the weird rubber-band feel of some powers didn't really matter" is also puzzling to me. Responsiveness has been a priority in mmo's since the beginning. I do not recall a 'time' playing mmo's when enormous lag and rubber banding really didn't matter. Maybe it's a perception thing?

I have to say this is a great word that I had entirely forgotten about! For fun I just checked - 'discombobulate' , 'discombobulated' , 'discombobulator' and 'discombobulation' are already taken as names on Everlasting. Would be awesome names for confuse toons whoever has them. 👍 My 'best guess' as to what the OP was talking about is maybe the slower reaction times when the server is under load. I start getting some temporary mapserver disconnects and pauses for abilities firing during combat, occasional rubber banding - that sort of thing? That would definitely make someone think the game is rubbery and unresponsive. For me this is only noticeable in certain conditions and those tend to be common conditions that cause unresponsiveness in almost all of the mmo's I've played; lots of players in a zone, lots of chat, busy market & email, basically the server is humming with activity - then I come along and try to run AE farms or something where there's a ton of fast number crunching going on and the graphics are maxed out with particle effects and lighting everywhere... Well, yes, under these types of conditions this and most other mmo's that I have played will be less responsive. Now, if the OP is having those types of response issues when things aren't under so much load then maybe something else is going on? With mmo's responsive feel can be affected by anything from server load to the internet to your isp to you home network to your pc (which can be your cpu, your gpu, your memory, your os, your drivers, etc). It is certainly possible the code on the server and client can and will be continually improved however as you stated there are limitations. I would be 'all in' for any improvements that can be made but I honestly am not having any real issues beyond what is common for these types of games. Edited to add: Snarky mentioned Excelsior rubber banding more lately, I have noticed it a bit on Everlasting also. Again, it always seemed to be happening when the server was buzzing like a bee hive that had been kicked and I was doing something seriously busy. Basically to me it seems like the 'trifecta' of (1) busy server load (2) heavy internet usage time (3) me doing something cpu/gpu client/server intensive. If there is some way to improve responsiveness under those conditions (other than things like turning your graphics settings down) then that would be great. But I think maybe there are so many 'moving parts' that can affect responsiveness that even if the game client and server were running perfect, well, you still have the entire internet, your isp, your home network, your pc.... Edited to add: WHAT? "Discombobulationatizer" is not a suitable name???? I think I discombobulated the name checker! Okay, I got "Discombobulist". 🙂

This was the first thing I thought of also! lol Also, This is a GREAT movie! Very silly and fun. I love all of the Pink Panther movies (the older Pater Sellers ones, never watched the Steve Martin ones but he's always funny too). I have been waiting for years for this to be released as a digital to add to my collection on VUDU (you can only get it in SD only on Amazon for way too much). Yomo - I have no idea how much you have given away but you rock! (as do all of you - this community is incredible) My guess is 12.7 billion. (I didn't read all of the prior guesses so sorry if I've duplicated)

This is good advice. It depends on you - but I strongly recommend actually playing the game before getting hooked into farming. If you just need some start up cash or what not folks here are very generous. Also, if you just want to get one or two toons up a few levels, again, folks here are usually very helpful and will often let others join their farm runs to get a quick powerlevel or two or maybe earn some inf / recipes. Unless you are planning to go completely nuts like me, it might be best to just tag along instead of making your own dedicated farmer. On that note... I have two fire/fire brute farmers who work awesome. I recently decided to roll rad/fire/mu based on what is considered one of the fastest farm builds. The results for me are (drum roll please) my fire / fire brutes are just fine for farming. While I think the rad/fire or spines/fire builds might be a bit faster, the difference is not enough to warrant going to one if you already have a good farming toon. In other words, if you want to put something together besides rad/fire/mu or spines/fire/mu that is, say, more to your personal liking or more thematic, go for it. As far as AT's go, brute seems easiest to me (however there are some other interesting builds that have me intrigued like mastermind controller and dominator). So, you should be okay with a /fire brute.

Well yeah, it can make your steering pull to one side and cause vibration at certain speeds - not to mention the uneven tire wear! 🚗 While it's not 'important' to playing the game as others have explained it changes the zones and missions you have access to. I popped in to mention I have to switch alignment sometimes to acquire a redside patron power (I mostly play blueside). It's a tiny pita but it allows you to get things like mu mastery on a hero build. 😉 (nice that we have this option)

Are you looking more for the twitchy first person shooter console type play? Is you internet / pc slow? I ask because I'm not exactly sure what you are describing. CoH has always played like a standard MMORPG to me. I do occasionally experience some pauses / lag / rubber banding etc but nothing more noticeable to me than when I play many other MMO's. I am playing from northern California and my connection (through AT&T) is decent but not stellar (20 ~ 35 kbps). There are times when the server seems to be under a bit of load (Everlasting) but not really anything outside of what I would call normal. Or are you just saying "Hey, it's 2021. Can't these things go faster / smoother?" to which the answer is a definite maybe? Maybe you are referring to animation times? Maybe all of the above? Are you interested in something more like Age of Conan combat? Just curious. 😀

Look - It's the same answer I always told my kids when they asked 'why'? The answer is 'because' silly goose!

For me those descriptions are very subjective and I believe meant more to be a 'general' description or 'idea' of what the power can do. I think standardization was not really the intent of those - more just a brief summary. Another example of this for me is the sliders showing how each AT 'ranks' when you make a new character (damage, survivability, etc). They are just sort of guides, not really anything rooted in an across the board standard. (interesting question though!) 🙂

I did make one toon sort of mythology based. I haven't really played him yet. His name is "Mister Eos" (a play on 'mysterious'). Eos was a Titaness (dawn) and Astraeus (dusk) was her husband. I didn't really flesh it out well yet because I rolled him as a kinetic/sr brute but I think I should redo him as a inv/dark tanker to be more in line with his 'dusk' title. He is also associated with winds because of his kids. Anyhow, I started down the Greek mythology path, just never followed through (yet). Here's a pic: Edited to add: I also have another 'Mister' toon. "Mister Ri" (a play on 'mystery') is a peacbringer, husband of my female peacbringer 'Celestri', hence Mister 'Ri'. Also edited to add: This gave me serious flashbacks. I had almost all of those books back in the 80's (and dice and hundreds of painted pewter figures and just about everything else D & D related back then). Thanks for the memories! Edited yet again to add: I just remembered we have the "Blessing of the Zephyr" IO's - 'Zephyr' comes from Zephyrus, the Greek God of the West Wind.

As long as you get it from Mids Reborn: Hero Designer you should be fine. It does sometimes trigger a false positive. I have not had any issues or infections from it. Which one may I ask? If it's Malwarebytes it would not surprise me.

Never go "full retard"... (not insulting the poor guy, just reminded me of the quote from Tropic Thunder). 🤪

Paraclete I think what some others are trying to convey perhaps is that they too felt the drive/need to get their old toons back, maybe not to the degree of dedication you have but still the same general feeling - then once they got in the game again and discovered all of the QoL improvements and fixes and new stuff, well suddenly you want to try new stuff that you did not maybe want to do before. I personally started off by very obsessively working on recreating my mains. Then I got into Homecoming and 112 toons later, I can admit that SO MUCH has been added and changed that I am absolutely loving discovering new builds, something I was much less likely to do on live as like most I was committed to playing my mains. I dunno how to put it into words exactly, but the feeling of playing on Homecoming is just better. For me, not only is CoX back, it is back in a form that is 'insanely fun' to play (before it was just 'fun'). Here, I'll try to make an analogy. CoX was like going for a burger and movie, fun and enjoyable. Homecoming is like Disneyland. nuff said So, I think we understand what you are saying about your '12' and we are 100% behind you. I think others are just popping in here to say "Don't worry, you are going to have fun and a TON to do!" (Plus we all know the amazing experience you are going to have when you first log back in) 😁 And we're are all here to help you on you goal to get your 12 back! (plus about 100 or so more, lol) 😉

Horse > Cow > Pig > Chicken. There are other AT's like Cat and Dog but they need rebalancing. 🤪 Or you could roll a brute...

Oh wow. I like this question. 👍 I'm about to faceplant on my desk so I'm heading to bed. I'm real interested what you all come up with here. I have several elemental builds (or builds with the powers listed) and never even gave it much thought including my main (my actual main main, not one of my alt mains) who is an E3 blaster. I think I pretty much agree with your evaluations of the electric set. I will ALWAYS love my blaster but my elec/elec and elec/shield brutes are just really fun. Overall I find the end drain part of elec a bit gimmicky - but I love it for the feel and the visuals honestly. I am curious about fire and ice too (well, all of them you listed really). Will check back in here before work tomorrow.

I thought it was going to be the one where he's a super hero... Scorpio - SNL - YouTube OP - You are asking a huge question (and a good one). Look for threads about enhancement guides to start. Here are a couple: Enhancements, Inventions, and Consignments. Oh My! - Guides - Homecoming (homecomingservers.com) New Players - Enhancements (DOs & SOs - use em) - General Discussion - Homecoming (homecomingservers.com) Also, it might be helpful for us to know more details like your AT, build goals, playstyle, in game funds / resources available, etc. Lastly, this game is pretty forgiving at the lower levels so you can almost get away with anything - I don't think there is any set way to do the enhancement thing levelling up. There are many many options that work fine. Often times I use SO's or DO's that drop just to fill some holes and get some stat boosts - then at 50 I switch to a predetermined build. Sometimes I play low levels without slotting anything at all just to see what I can do. I guess I should ask, are you familiar at all with City of Heroes? Have you played it or are you just starting out?

Yes, my ex-wife was exotic. This explains much. She did break through my defense, but my 'exotic' resistances held! 😘

I decided to go with the Rad/Fire build from Farm fresh builds! *Farming focused builds and tips* - Guides - Homecoming (homecomingservers.com) as advertised. Once I run it a few times at full T4 I'll probably re-do it to fine tune it a bit. Funny thing is, on my current Fire/Fire farmers, I never even took the 'appropriate' incarnates for maxing a farmer, again thinking that I would make them more usable in normal content and just as you did I took Energy Mastery on both for the non farming stats. On this new toon I am going to stick with the 'established' best incarnates and of course Mu Mastery. Also, I love the feel of pyronic, however ion is the recommended there so I'll go with that too (hits more targets) and I'll switch from the polar pets to the banished. I am very curious now to see how much the difference is between the farm builds I have been using and one of the recommended min/max inf/xp/time builds so I'll stick with the cookie cutter (as you said 'strict') and then start adjusting it for my own once I find out what the big deal is. 😁 (for what it's worth, it looks like spines pretty much still runs almost dead even with rad but rad is currently claiming a tiny lead) I'm sure none of these slight completion time differences are that big of a deal and AE farming is not something I spend as much time on any more. But I'm curious, plus a new farmer might make it a bit less boring. Lastly, if it lets me free up my current Fire/Fire's to rebuild them for regular content I'm curious how they would do there. Interesting advice about the procs in Irradiated Ground. The build I'm going to try does not have that, but it will be in my mind as a tweak to try once completed. (thanks arcane!) I love this game. There is so much to do (in addition to all of the crazy builds and creating a 'complete' stable of dream toons I still have a HUGE super group base project to do and exploration and.. [blows a fuse and slumps over at desk with smoke wisps coming from ears])

Well Snarky I decided to go 'read up' on the latest for farming builds and it doesn't look like much has changed. Pretty much /fire brutes are still the deal. In fact, I never even fine tuned either of mine and I'm sure they could both be faster - but I decided to jump in and try the Rad/Fire/Mu also. It would appear you have chosen wisely. Why not make a farmer that's fine tuned to be the best farmer, right? So, when I made my Fire/Fire/En brutes I had in mind builds that I could actually modify to be decent in regular content too. I never bothered to go for the fastest farmer as mine were both plenty fast (to me). Now I'm curious so I'm going to make one that's totally fine tuned and dedicated to see how much the inf/xp/time difference is. I noticed that Fire/Fire isn't even listed among the fastest farming builds so maybe I should switch out my farm build before another year goes by. Plus now I'm just plain curious. I'm not normally big on AT/builds where the powers seem mismatched or can't be explained by a backstory that makes sense, or the combined look just doesn't work. Sorta like peanut butter and tuna - you CAN put them together, but they just don't really mesh well. I was concerned with Rad/Fire/Mu that I would have that situation, but I was able to come up with something that works really well thematically (for me) and I changed the powers coloring to all match up together and with his costume. He's magic origin, so it looks like he's throwing about various magical abilities (radiation, fire and electricity) all the same colors. His name is Brighten, and between his celestial armor, auras and various abilities that all emit light - well his name fits. (Snarky, I know you are redside so 'Brighten' probably makes you cringe 😬 so sorry in advance lol) So now I have another project! Weeee! And I still have to make either the plant/storm controller and/or plant/_ dominator. I wonder which would be better? It sounds like the controller would be more passive (watch the mobs beat on each other) vs the dominator being more active/aggressive getting more defeats. Do I have that right? Oh, and when I was reading up I did notice some mastermind farmer stuff (didn't read it) but now Neiska has me wondering about that as another viable option. 😋 (Yes, even my farmers need to be a complete well thought out total package. Everything from the name to the look to the powers to the backstory. Now that I think about it, I think I would have a nervous breakdown if I tried to play a slapped together toon. Hmmmm... maybe I need to add that to my list too!)

VERY valid point. I am very good at coming up with names and I am constantly surprised that some of my more creative name ideas are already taken - which actually impresses me instead of frustrating me. I like that people are getting THAT into the game. Fortunately for me two of my 'mains' were still available (Maximus Power and Cybro) however the name of a third 'main' was taken - so I ended up making a slightly new name. Was Crimson Avenger - now Crimson Vengeance AND Crimson Tempest (because my orig main was regen and for *reasons* I wanted to make a willlpower version too). At first I was frustrated about it and did not like having to 'give up' the original name. Since then however I am actually more pleased with the new name(s). When I made Crimson Avenger, I honestly had not even THOUGHT about The Avengers - the name had NOTHING to do with them. But I realized later that some folks might think it's a copy or homage or branch off or something like that when it really wasn't (while admittedly his skillset was 'borrowed' from a certain x-man, lol). Also, you get to rename easily so you don't feel 'locked in' if you settle on some 'okay for now' name just to get into the game until you rethink of a better (or the perfect) one. I just renamed one of my farmers from Infernux to Inflammation because I liked it better (and I read about GM Cyclone and his toon Infurno being memorialized and I decided to give that name some some space out of respect and love - my personal choice. Could have just as easily decided keeping the name was respectful/loving also). Anyhoo - renaming is readily available. Homecoming has a name policy that they have not implemented yet that is designed to free up unused names. You can read about it here: Frequently Asked Questions - Getting Started - Homecoming (homecomingservers.com) This is a good thread found here in the general section: I can't believe I got that name! - General Discussion - Homecoming (homecomingservers.com) And lastly I have a ridiculous 'about me' section in my profile with a (slightly outdated) list of my characters so you can get an idea of the kind of names I have been able to get. See the link in my signature (skip past the part where I tell my life story lol). Edited to add: OH YEAH - Logging in for the first time is... overwhelming, in a really good way. 😍

Welcome back! When I first found Homecoming, I was feeling much like you. I really wanted my old characters back. As I'm sure many others did also. The truth is that it is very unlikely that those characters will ever be available. Sure, anything could happen - CoH came back from beyond after all. But as mentioned there are lots of legal reasons that make the chances slim to none. (not to mention it is claimed that no one actually has that data and if anyone does they would probably get in trouble if they released it.) So... THE GOOD NEWS is that it doesn't take much or very long to recreate your toons from live. In fact, I highly recommend it. I personally enjoyed the experience and now I have some of my favorites back as new and improved 2.0 versions - and let me tell you, they are VERY improved. It gave me the chance to re-bond with them and get up to speed with how they play in the current state of the game. 😁 Just be careful not to catch alt-itis. I mean, I don't have it. I just like to make new toons. All the time. Every time I think of something new or someone else gives me an idea. No I totally got this under control. I'm fine. Honest! (I have 111 toons and counting, lol) As far as the computer goes, just like gourdhead said, you could get a decent rig that could handle CoH for around what you stated. My son plays it on an old 15" hp laptop (low end ATI mobile card) at good settings. As you have already probably noticed, this is an incredible community and there are lots and lots of helpful people here. If you have any old screenshots of your toons from before that can be helpful (I found some and they helped me get things accurate). Great to have you back! 😃

Well crud. Pulling the whole map and making them beat each other into submission sounds fun. Now I have to try a plant/storm farmer. Is it really that good? Snarky, Rad/Fire/Mu sounds like a winner. Having 'farm' and 'normal' builds sounds like a great idea.