Digirium

Thanks for listening to the feedback in the original thread. I think this re-work award of badges is good and something I would have suggested.

Re: AFK Brute Spines/Fiery Aura auto-toggle Burn vs Spine Burst Just to follow-up I switched one of my brutes to auto-toggle Spine Burst instead of Burn. On an AFK mission run on the Shiva asteroid map filled with patrols it reduced the run time by 2-3 minutes between start and completion. I think that was good however I think either option is still effective because it is AFK and it doesn't matter? May be an old-timer like me might still put Burn on auto and lament the changes to Burn.

Re: AFK Brute Spines/Fiery Aura - which power to auto-toggle on Spines Burst vs Burn Spine Burst can hit 10 targets, Burn can hit 5 And loosely: Spine Burst recharges quicker, Burn is +50% recharge time compared to Spine Burst Spine Burst does approx half the damage Burn does I had not considered the difference until now and still use Burn and it is still effective. May be I will see what the difference is by timing some runs HOWEVER when AFK how long it takes to clear a mission does not matter because if you check in every 20 minutes or so, done is still done. Auto-toggling something on is better than not auto-toggling anything on -- which I've done a few times and come back after 20 minutes not cleared wondered what was going on and facepalmed.

Just an NB but those requirements were for an earlier Issue/Page. The objective right now for the current Issue/Page (I27P6) is 60 HP/sec plus, at least according to the self-made AE mission that I use on the Shivan asteroid populated with patrols that ALL attack at the same time. The advice is still the same though for an AFK build increase MaxHP and regeneration as much as possible. Good luck, it was a fun process over many iterations when I figured it out for myself.

Brute Spines/Fiery Aura is still good and actually still my first pick for AFK AE farming. Your build is still viable but only for maps where the critter groups are static and not moving. It allows control of how much aggro is pulled. Maps containing patrols that run in to you would probably overwhelm your build (the Shivan asteroid with patrols for example). The build is not viable for AFK. I think rule #1 of AE farming is create your own map. Please give it an objective to complete the mission like click a container rather than a timer that ejects you in to the AE foyer. The foyer is already cluttered up with farmers standing around doing nothing making a mess of the place. I have been down the paths of recharge-oriented Mu builds, the unified active/AFK build and solely AFK build. Now I only retain one build the AFK build because that can become active just by pressing a few buttons (Ageless Core, Hasten, whatever other attacks and damage inspiration combine and execute). To get an AFK build focus/goal is increasing hit-points and health regeneration it's that simple. A brute can do AFK however a tanker might work out better in the short-term because it naturally has more hit-points.

Like it or not I think this daily PAP reward will end up being the default objective looked for by every team that is formed for TF/SF. Diversity is accepting whomever applies to join a team and running that way. Diversity is not enforcing a team composition from 20 years ago and calling it "diversity". Some servers there is really a struggle to get a full team to do anything even despite the influx of players at the moment. If this idea had instead been about encouraging players to join teams no matter the composition it would have worked out better. Time will tell -- my prediction is this will place a harmful negative on how we play the game.

There is one elephant in the room concerning dual pistols when going in to the costume editor the editor reverts to the default pistol and colors. I guess it happens to everyone it has been a bug that has existed it seems like forever. Nobody seems to really talk about it the bug is fairly annoying but does not put me off playing dual pistols at all. Is there anyone not affected by this bug?

There were no server issues at the time the OP posted. Unless the OP posts more information speculation is just conjecture.

Playing a DP/Ninja too at the moment and loving it! The highlights for me are: good defense (I call it good when typed/positional is 25% or better) critical shot damage indicators popping up frequently ToHit bonus from Shinobi, Kuj-In Toh (nearly 50 hp/sec) knocking stuff down with Golden Dragonfly. I had this character leveled up to 50 two years ago as part of "must play all blasters" but never got around to playing it until now. And now that I am playing it I am facepalming at the thought I had not played it right away. If you know the movies Grammaton Cleric (Equilibrium) + Wanted.

I think it's nothing to do with names but instead taking part in the action i.e. LFG. I left Reunion years ago because there was no activity and headed to Excelsior. Returned this past weekend to Reunion to play see how things were Saturday and Sunday were great. However today despite the 200+ number online no action at all in LFG. Plenty of players appeared teamed-up without a word in LFG conclusion: farming and power-leveling. Once again I moved back to Excelsior the "we were there!" crowd has mostly vanished.

Busiest chatty day I have seen on Reunion in years. The Ritki Invasions do not matter. The temporary title for fighting above invasion does not matter. If the double XP is kept enabled then Reunion (and the other two server shards) will keep busy.

Online numbers on Excelsior yesterday evening topped 1,200-1,300 three red pips high load. I imagine they are here for the moment to celebrate but a moment can be short or long who knows? There are some very good questions in this thread about the details.

If a mad person has Inf they want to disperse to the masses then I am content selling them all my yellow salvage. I do not buy salvage from the AH no idea if anyone on the other side is paying exorbitant yellow prices. Inevitably bubble will burst.

My tankers use KB to KD in powers that have KB because I don't want to be THAT player! Take the 25% regen - health regen is very underrated on tanks but after defense, resistance it is the next most important thing!

I played during the live years and my sentiment about JE was that he was anti-player and had fixed notions nobody could ever change, not the players or development team. Everything was always a massive fight trying to make JE see sense. For example like his wanting to hide all the knowledge about power numbers from players! I think the reason Statesman was killed off was when he left it gave the development team an opportunity and the satisfaction to take their vengeance for themselves and the players caught up in those dumb arguments with JE both internally and externally.

To correct some misinformation with actual facts - in the recent ToT my characters collecting the badges wore a 10 PaP Cabal costume. It worked just fine for treats getting the costumes and whispered rumor tips. Never wore any of those dropped costumes. No need to delete any of the regular tips to make space for the whispered rumor tip.

The launcher is misreporting Excelsior's status because Excelsior is, in fact, up and running.

Hey now! In fact just the opposite! 😇

Yes, I have made the same observations in PI Excelsior motel ToT but I just stick to my plan which is collect badges and move on. For some stuff like the costume badges and whispered rumor tip badges these can be done without being in the league. The presence of the league is handy to clean up the trail of tricks hunting me down and trying to ruin my day! The league deserves all the XP and other rewards from defeating my tricks. Getting the badges for regular, elites and GM defeats happens very fast while in the league and means taking a league place for only a few minutes, it at least feels that way. Some players might want to farm ToT salvage for the other stuff that is available but not me. Badges for Deadly Apocalypse and/or Zombie Apocalypse might come during league time but it is just as easy to run them separately.

I will pay twice what the vendor will buy salvage for to help other players get their badges. Players play their games in the auction house until their game ends. Right now instead of selling yellows to the vendor I am selling them on AH for five times what I would normally buy them for when I need yellows. I will never buy yellows at inflated rates because everything I could need is in SG salvage racks. And their game in the AH always ends, it always does. I have seen it all before. It is unsustainable due to loss and burnout they receive the answer they needed.

For AFK a Brute with Spines/Fire and 60+ hp/sec on the asteroid map and 16x patrol is completely survivable. I have been waiting for a life extinguishing event to happen with all aggro getting hits instead of misses. It has come close right up to 60/hp sec and receded completely when that figure was exceeded. Farmer parked in the middle of the map begins with aggro from most of the patrols. Bosses rush in, when they are gone the lieutenants rush in then the minions (lookup Mr Sterling in AE for the map I made and use - 41x missions of this farm gets a new character to 50 with incarnate slots filled, the farm has five missions so eight runs + 1 mission). The Brute that I use has 62.5 hp/sec health regeneration that can ATO proc surge up to 66-68 hp/sec. Tankers work AFK but a Brute has the advantage due to fury. While AFK no care is given to the time taken to clear a farm mission. A tanker can gain more hp/sec than a brute and can very easily survive AFK but the downside is it takes longer to finish a farm mission than a brute. While no care is given to the time taken in the bigger picture being efficient/effective does matter. A brute is the better choice. Aside from fury for technical reasons to do with hp/sec a Brute spines/fire builds out better than Brute rad/fire for AFK.

Impossible to read everything in this thread, although some does not "compute" whichever angle it is viewed. Yes, I played in live from opening to sunset. Yes, the so-called "Holy Trinity" existed it was real it was a fact. I think that because characters in those days were a fraction of the "powered up" level that exists today. You had to follow the pattern because it was the most effective way to play. It prevented team members from consistently "eating dirt" and allowed the team to make progress. Today, the "Holy Trinity" is less required than it was because characters can "power up" through IO sets and the advantages offered. Hard mode challenges are the exception, I feel. I do perceive a problem with players playing today. They're locked in to "speedy mode is on the only effective way", they infect other players with the same ideology. This is not all bad, it is effective. However, there are anti-patterns establishing themselves in to game play today. These are less effective play methods and have parallels to the past that cause team members to "eat dirt". For example: herding and the chaos that ensues.

MRB 3.6.6.3 works on Linux now, if anyone is interested? Arch Linux with kernel 6.5.3 wine-staging 8.15-2 winetricks-git 20230212 $ winetricks -q corefonts dotnetdesktop6 $ wine MRB_Setup3663.exe Font segoe is required found here: https://github.com/mrbvrz/segoe-ui-linux Copy files from font folder to $WINEPREFIX/drive_c/windows/Fonts/ I was worried newest versions of MRB would stop working on Linux miraculously/randomly works now.

I use MidsReborn under Wine on Linux it worked well enough until this release 3.6.5.3 and new requirements for .NET 6.0. Tried Mono at first, then figured out winetricks needed an update to be able to install dotnet6 or dotnetdesktop6 (unsure which of these is really required yet). Not gotten past the stage of MidsReborn crashing on startup. Reverted to the previous version of MidsReborn for now, until the issue is figured out. Really depend on MidsReborn without it cannot play Homecoming so thanks for keeping it alive. I loathe Windows and M$ with a passion and .NET causes me despair!

Yes, that is a bug in Mids. The easiest way to see the bug is on a character with multiple IS regen procs is to open the combat window and see the accounting of effects that provide health regeneration (Mids could really use something similar, a drill down in the total window to show how the total was accounted for within the semantics that Mids uses). Everyone that has been down this path should get a "Duh!" tee-shirt. Why is it like this? To allow the set bonus for slotting all five enhancements from IS even if the effects from the proc are only counted once.