Veracor

I'll be honest, I've long had a low opinion of you based on the things you've said on these forums. I've seen all kinds of sexist and racist excuses and this one I've seen several times. Thank you for filtering yourself out and making my job easier. You're no longer welcome in my content should you ever leave your AE farm.

The Crystal Titan will not use its Foot Stomp if its current target is out of reach. It will only do its cone attack, Prism Blast, at you. You can taunt it from up high and everyone else can safely nibble its ankles to death, assuming nobody nibbling its ankles is also taunting. You should only need 1-2 Ambrosia and all other inspirations can be oranges and greens. Hope this helps!

I would just like to leave some words of appreciation for the people doing hard work around here. Developers, Homecoming Team, Game Masters, Constructive Posters and Thoughtful Lurkers: thank you for staying professional through all the ups and downs. I don't agree with every change being made and I don't agree with every change that has been made. But what I do like to see is complexity being added into an otherwise barebones system: Homecoming has consistently taken the more inventive path of making content and powersets unique from one another, often utilizing new features to achieve balance. These changes aren't being made "just cause" nor are they the first ideas tried: a more diverse character becomes more effective for different reasons, and a more diverse team allows more freedom in the game. The CoH specialty of "bring your own build" steps up a level with every patch, and the player having agency in choosing what to play, especially solo, is a real mainstay of CoH compared to other games. And coming from games where such player agency often does not exist, I appreciate this. But over the years, I also want to say that I have grown a healthy respect for the community of Homecoming for upholding civility through it all. It is easy for someone to look at Homecoming as groups and talk as though each group has singular minds doing and agreeing with everything. They're not. There is a person behind each account, each handling their own life/work/game balance. Doesn't matter if they're a developer working on content or an invisible hand making sure the servers stay running, or if they're a forum poster making well-thought suggestions or a GM that combs through such suggestions. They have all chosen to contribute to this project despite the reward merely being more work, and they have done so with a stellar track record compared to most. An online community is a chance to be open and to improve, and attacking others does not befit the learning mind. I haven't seen any changes from Homecoming that have been done in bad faith; everything that's happened so far has had some sort of reason behind it that was intended to help, even if that reason was misunderstood. Give others the benefit of the doubt, then address the points of contention before coming to a conclusion on one another. Everyone is a someone. So again, mad appreciation to everyone that works on this project of passion and additionally to all of the helpers of the community that make effort to be concise and rational with their posts here and on the discord. Be you for/against changes, even if you're someone that doesn't post frequently, it is often the focused and well-sourced response that makes the difference in a decision, not the volume or size of the thread. Thank you, and I look forward to playing with you all ingame!

I have killed so many Skulls.

I run a lot of content on Everlasting and usually check everyone's globals when I do. I've been seeing a lot of globals I don't recognize, and a lot of new players asking for Hami/iTrial instructions. But I'm also seeing a lot of gray names in my friends list. As for content popularity, it's been interesting. Hami raid attendance has only gone up, and raids are often filling before the launch time without even advertising, and the curious thing is that I see new globals at these raids too. iTrial attendance has been stable, while lately MoTF attendance has almost exclusively been filled with older globals that are just playing alts. Hard mode content seems to have more new globals than MoTFs do. And occasionally I'll spot a global I haven't seen since 2019 for a few days of content, only to not see them again. The population appears to be stable, but new players do seem to be replacing the older ones that are losing interest or taking breaks. Strangely, weekdays seem to be more active for raids than weekends.

I think there's more toxicity in this thread than what actually exists in game. Like seriously, Toxic Blast when?

Lol I'm not paying influence for these. Hard mode and iTrials are fun!

During iTrials and Task Forces: I respond "Okay" and get their global name. I get their global name again 30 seconds later and hopefully they're on their other character. If I was advertising the number of spots, I account for them taking a spot. I do not advertise being full until everyone is present. If the last spots are claimed by people switching characters, I respond to further tells "We might be full, waiting on people to switch," followed by "Sorry, we filled," if they show up, or "They didn't show, still want in?" if they don't. After several minutes if the person still has not switched characters or shown up, I message them for confirmation, and launch anyways if they don't respond and no one else was in line. During these minutes I sometimes go ahead and run instructions for the people that are already present. During Hamidon raids: I respond "Come to zone for invite."

Pretty much this. SSR, Burk, and I finished a meme run of 4-star ITF yesterday with 8 Masterminds (We multiboxed it for better control over what was going on). It took 4.5 hours of mistakes and wipes, but we learned a lot and it would probably be close to the 3 hour mark if we tried it again. But yeah, even a slight amount of variety (such as 7 MMs and 1 Tanker/Brute) would have greatly helped in rounding the team out.

Oh wow, all the 4-star ASFs I've joined since the patch have skipped the Vanguard fight because we all had the MDC already. That would bring the profit, for an average player, to a bit higher than AE farming for doing 4-star ASF+Vanguard fight. Thanks for pointing this out, even with Ctrl+F on the patch notes I glossed over it. Guess I'll ask next time everyone's on if we want to do ASF instead of ITF! (But chances are we'll end up running ITF anyways because it's new)

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/37186-patch-notes-for-august-23rd-2022-issue-27-page-4/ 20 times 24 million is 480 million, then divided by anywhere between 2.0 to 3.0 for the time per hour. When you make a claim of 8 billion for every task force completion, yeah no. https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/37390-page-4-fire-farming-microguide-maps-builds/ as an example. This applies to every player that chooses to AE farm instead of running the task force, which is why you need to compare 1:1 to 8:8. I'm going to go run content, enjoy the thread folks.

Well first off, you only get 20 Prismatics for a 4-star run, and Homecoming's market has always been cross-shard. Secondly, the times for a 4-star run range between 90 minutes (organized team geared for it) to 240 minutes (pugs trying it the first time), and this isn't accounting for the time it takes to get the team together. A typical runner is going to get 20 Prismatics for 120-180 minutes of effort. This falls into the 150-250m/hr range I gave, even if the Reward Merits are converted and sold. Thirdly, you are conflating the influence gain of a single AE farmer to the profit that 8 players are making from a 4-star run. This is giving you numbers that are 8 times higher than they should be on top of Prismatics only being 20 per player. You should be comparing 8 players choosing to AE farm to 8 players' profit from the task force, or a single AE farmer to what a single player makes from the task force.

I am just chiming in to say that I appreciate the impact that the new Prismatics have had on the economy. For a player putting in the time and effort to run hardmode content, it's nice to finally have the option to sell the rewards to gain an amount of influence that is comparable to AFK farming. This equivalency won't last without the constant addition of new things to buy with the Prismatics, but as it stands now it is in a balanced and enjoyable place. Making the Prismatics a purely vanity thing (buy the few things you want to use / buy all the things for no reason) is a good call in my opinion, because it leans more toward player demand rather than being a badge checklist, and allows it to also be used for future content rewards. I'm sure aspiring economists (and future content designers) are watching and recording the influx of a new item/currency appearing on the market with great interest. Me, I'm personally interested in how long the price equivalency lasts for. I don't know where you're getting your numbers from but this is very incorrect. With the time it takes for a team to both form up and run a 4-star ITF/ASF, accounting for the extra Reward Merits, a typical player is going to average around 150-250m influence per hour if they choose to sell the Prismatics. This is on par with the standard AFK farming setups, with a player on a speedrun potentially making more than 250m/hr. Prismatics were only expensive on the first day because of a select few people who had stockpiled influence to purposely make crazy bids. They had their own reasons for this and they can speak to it if they so wish.

I stopped caring about wealth a long time ago. I'm casually working up to 10k of every salvage for no reason, including Hero/Villain Merits. I'll be hitting 10k in those long before hitting 10k Transcendents, so the removal of the merit conversion doesn't really affect me. But I do agree, if I did care about wealth, this change hurts the people who play few characters in iTrials as much as it hurts AE farmers that are powerlevelling new characters for Emps. It is a solution, but it is not a good solution. I was much more on board with the "No vet levels in AE" change from before because it was direct, made sense lorewise, didn't affect non-AE players, was future-focused, and expanded the system of HC marking quality AE stories for full rewards.

If you're talking about the "left+right = run" functionality, you can get rid of it using: /bind mousechord nop Hope this helps!

(Removed by request)

It's just an alt account for base building so that I can farm the Skulls of Perez Park while putting bricks on top of each other. Nothing involving Mids' guides or anything. Recently I've been pretty busy outside of the Everlasting iTrial schedule but it's been on my to-do list to get back into base building at some point.

I hesitate to report this because it's so dumb, but I noticed a small discrepency in my damage taken logs. Rikti Monkeys (and the similarly named Vicious Rikti Monkeys) seem to be doing 200-300% more damage than before the March 28 patch. And I have no idea why. Fortunately I run TFs daily and can look back on weeks of LGTF runs to compare with what's happening now. Random LGTF runs from before March 28 (-1/x8): 2021-07-20 16:32:20 Rikti Monkey hits you with their Psychic Dart for 20.52 points of Psionic damage. 2021-07-20 16:41:16 Vicious Rikti Monkey hits you with their Monkey Brawl for 5.15 points of Smashing damage. 2021-07-31 16:40:52 Vicious Rikti Monkey hits you with their Psychic Dart for 28.68 points of Psionic damage. 2021-08-24 01:36:11 Rikti Monkey hits you with their Monkey Brawl for 7.39 points of Smashing damage. 2021-08-24 01:36:14 Rikti Monkey hits you with their Monkey Brawl for 6.41 points of Smashing damage. 2021-08-24 01:36:17 Rikti Monkey hits you with their Monkey Brawl for 6.41 points of Smashing damage. 2021-08-24 16:56:27 Vicious Rikti Monkey hits you with their Psychic Dart for 22.43 points of Psionic damage. A quick check on the same mission of LGTF after Match 28 (-1/x8): The conditions above would be the same build, no inspirations, and some number of foes in Evolving Armor's range. There's no resistance debuffs from Rikti mobs here, but there are some small damage buffs from their Accelerate Metabolism. But here's the thing that pins it to the March 28 patch: I coincidentally tried Rest-tanking level 54 Rikti Monkeys as a joke on March 26. In those logs, I was taking -309 damage per Brawl while using Rest, and could tank 6 of these Rikti Monkeys once they were out of endurance. Trying the same spot with the same mobs at the same level now yields -735 damage per Brawl while using Rest, and I can only tank 2 of these Rikti Monkeys once they are out of endurance. Fortunately I also run Hami raids daily and was able to look at those same logs to see if the damage increase was tied to the Underling rank. The Swarm mobs appear to be doing the same damage as before the patch, under the same conditions, so the bug is not with the rank. I have no theory as to what might have changed in the March 28 code that would have buffed Rikti Monkeys of all things. I'd understand it if the April Fools' event used Underlings and the bug was tied to the rank, but it doesn't and it isn't. Edit: Completely forgot about the Freakshow monkeys in the event, my bad.

The powexeclocation function was rewritten serverside in Issue 27 Page 3 to fix exploits that allowed players to teleport to areas that shouldn't be teleportable (One such example, it was possible to skip the Rock Wall and Mold Wall in the Eden trial). Unfortunately if the target is not in line-of-sight, the new algorithm can sometimes get hung up on the map's beacons being embedded in geometry. Some things you can do to help get around this: Jump beforehand to make sure your serverside position is more likely to be fully within line of sight of the destination. This seems to help a lot when teleporting to target. Teleport to cursor instead of to target, so that you're selecting actual geometry (or open air at max range) as a destination. I personally find that teleporting to cursor is much more reliable, though it requires aiming. Be moving as you also mash the macro/bind, and then use powexecunqueue once you see your teleport animation begin to avoid teleporting twice (Doesn't work with Combat Teleport). Enhance range so that non-LoS beacon path is more likely to still be valid. Range enhancements and Cardiac/Intuition Alphas are the most accessible options for this.

A very good writeup! The Dr. Aeon Strike Force is easily one of my favorite task forces to run both casually and to tryhard on. Presenting a complex story in a task force instead of a story arc can be difficult to say the least, but I think you did a great job at working past CoH's limitations. I appreciate that you stuck so closely to the lore of the Goldbrickers (and others) and that you were receptive to feedback regarding balance during early testing, especially with inspirations and the new difficulty settings. Relentless difficulty feels great to play without leaning into the MMO trinity and I am still very impressed by the attention to detail with the maps. Even if one takes some sort of issue with the strike force, they cannot deny that serious effort was put into making its new features fully functional and honestly quite polished! Well done, Cobalt and Dev Team! I'm absolutely looking forward to any new content that Homecoming releases if Dr. Aeon Strike Force is indeed the Gold Standard!

Yes, if you have an issue in the game or with the website, make a support ticket. It goes to a big ticket pool where all the GMs are hanging out in their innertube emotes. If you have a suggestion, post it to the Suggestions & Feedback forum instead of pinging a dev. Devs have an endless list of things to work on and so tend to be pretty cranky busy; they'll see it eventually. If you notice the servers exploded then you might consider pinging Homecoming staff, but their reaction times are esports level and chances are high they're already working on unexploding the situation.

Fire/Fire Blaster is the default speedrun setup and is the build Elmyder did the MLTF solo run on. Fire Blast offers the best AoE (Fireball and Inferno) paired with Blaze and Blazing Bolt, which are among the best single target DPA attacks in the game. Fire Manipulation offers Burn which is one of (if not the) strongest powers in the game due to doubling up on proc damage, as well as two damage auras to add additional damage while using your main attack chain. Fire Sword or procmonstered Char are usually used as the filler in the attack chain. It just so happens that Fire damage is one of the least resisted damage types in the game for task forces and itrials, aside from the Goldbrickers in Dr Aeon Strike Force (Because Cobalt Arachne was aware of this when making it). It should be noted that Fire/Fire Blasters are glass cannons and rely heavily on chaining inspirations to stay alive, and so might not be the best choice for a solo MLTF run. In regular content, they typically kill mobs so fast that they can survive on inspiration drops alone. Scrapper is another choice for speedruns. The buffed Energy Melee offers the best single target damage, while the nerfed Titan Weapons still offers reasonably close single target damage while also having great options for AoE. For secondaries, Fiery Aura has the best damage aura alongside Burn, while Bio Armor offers less damage but does so passively for the builds that don't want Burn as part of an attack chain. Scrappers have higher single target damage than Blasters but don't clear groups as quickly, and don't need to rely on inspirations quite so hard. A TW/Bio Scrapper is probably the "safest" speedrun build to play if the playstyle interests a potential new runner (TW in particular because AoE knockdown is good damage mitigation). There are others that can solo MLTF. I did so on my Bio/TW Tanker by pulling Patron/LR aggro away from my Lore/temp summons and letting them kill the towers with team inspirations. Elmyder has also soloed MLTF with an Ill/Rad controller as a funsies project, but it took him hours. I have heard about Mind Dominators soloing LRSF by perma-sleeping the Freedom Phalanx while one is confused to kill the others, but haven't heard about it ever being done quickly, and I'm not certain if/how the meta speedrun builds have tried solo LRSF. For other task forces, procmonstered Ice/Fire Blasters are sometimes considered due to relative single target DPS to Fire/Fire. In organized teams on AV-heavy content, sometimes /Cold Corruptors are used for their -res debuffs; /Cold Masterminds are also a possibility by offering the same debuffs but lots of single target DPS, but not one that speedrunners currently care to deal with due to heavy reliance on Incandescence chains. On inspiration-less team runs, a /Kin Corruptor is often seen to maintain damage caps for everyone and /Cold Corruptors are more likely to be seen for the extra defense, but otherwise not much changes other than a slower time.

So, I would just like point out a few things: (1) Soloing a task force, no matter how many inspirations you email to yourself, is never going to be faster than doing it with a team. Soloing a task force has no inflationary impact on the rewards offered, and, if anything, serves as an influence and thread sink for people who have lots of disposable wealth. Soloing task forces like this has no negative impact on other players. (2) Chaining inspirations from email is an additional layer of "menu management" during combat for a speedrunner to handle, increasing the skill ceiling of the game whether it is being done solo or team, as well as positional awareness when dealing with team inspirations. This allows more interest and complexity in the run's execution, even if it does narrow the number of viable ATs/powersets. (3) Speedrunners and tool-assisted speedrunners do very much adhere to "if the game allows it, it must be accounted for." This is not an attempt to minmax or metagame, but rather to remove discretion and bias from the environment. When it comes to rules there must be as little "gray area" as possible, so that the playing ground is as even as possible. What classifies an exploit and what doesn't is decided by a community of vested runners at a later date, based on how it positively or negatively it has been impacting speedruns of the game. (4) Speedrunners have already done inspiration-less speedruns, as well as email-less speedruns. They're somewhat interesting in routing and math, but very boring in practice. A "no inspirations" category on Homecoming speedruns would not see decent activity or viewership. ASF Relentless could be an exception to this purely because of its design. Anyways, that's all I wanted to say. Carry on.

64-bit client. It released pretty early on and people often forget about it, but I think it was one of the biggest improvements Homecoming has made. My performance on the 32-bit version was terrible and I don't think I would have stuck with City of Heroes if I had to continue leading raids at 5 fps. Some sort of issue with Ryzen processors or something. As far as I know none of the other servers have a 64-bit client yet, but maybe that's changed in the last year.

Yeah, quite a few of the speedrunners have done it at this point. It is recommended to chug a lot of inspirations to make it happen solo, regardless of AT. I've heard Confuse stacking may work to solo LRSF without much inspiration usage, but I've also heard it takes hours to do it that way. Honestly if you want Hami-Os, you should just attend Hami raids unless their schedules don't work for you. But let me tell you a funny story. In April 2020 my speedrunner friend @Elmyder attempted to solo MLTF on his Fire/Fire Blaster by emailing himself a hundred super/ultimate inspirations beforehand, and he got to Lord Recluse in a pretty good time. However despite all the inspirations, he was unable to kill the towers before Recluse would hit him on a 10% chance and kill him, forcing him to go through another batch of inspirations. Eventually he had eaten all the inspirations in his email and decided to give up instead of emailing himself more. Hearing this, I decided to prank him by quietly soloing MLTF on my Tanker, which is a bad AT for speedrunning. The time it took me to get to Recluse was pretty miserable, but I was able to slowly kill the towers one-by-one by taunting Recluse away from my lore pets and popping team inspirations to keep them healed. It took several lore and many temp summons but I eventually defeated Recluse by keeping his aggro off of them, and I posted my terrible time of 80+ minutes to Elmyder's Discord and jokingly claimed that I had the best solo MLTF time on Everlasting. Elmyder refused to let this stand and the next day he went at it again with another email full of inspirations and managed to clear it in under an hour. It was a lot of effort and inspirations spent but it was totally worth the joke. We still sometimes meme about Tanker% speedruns today, based on the various reactions people had to it. Edit: Oh hey I found the screenshot, the run was actually done in 70 minutes. Hurts my eyes to see me using the near-default UI: