BlackSpectre

Parodies and farces featuring exact copies of copyrighted characters are allowed under copyright law… That said, “inspired by _________” should be perfectly acceptable. Just use different names, costumes, and back stories… and most of the time the powers will not be an exact match anyway.

If you can get large amounts of regen or recovery, it’s better than having bigger hp or end pools. With enough regen or recovery you can be the energizer bunny and just… keep… going. But getting high enough values of regen is more difficult than high recovery. Ideally, you want enough end to be able to fire off your entire attack/power chain plus a little more, and enough recovery to restore it so that your attack/power chain can continue uninterrupted. Ideally, you want enough hp to weather an alpha strike, and enough regen to get your health back fairly quickly… but getting enough regen is hard to do. Just a small amount of any of those stats has a small impact if you’re looking at them isolation.

Team play vs solo play matters. Solo, high defense and resistances are important. Team play, it’s not as important because in most cases the rest of the team’s buffs, debuffs, heals, and damage strengthen all the individuals on a team. I do a mix of solo and team based play, so my toons are generally built to be useful in both arenas.. versatile. That said, I have not found that balancing offense was more difficult when attempting to balance defense except for a few archetypes/power sets. My dark/dark defender, for example, has always been a difficult balance to make. However, I have managed to build him so that he can solo most of the content in the game. His Achilles heal is lack of damage… and that’s not really a balancing thing as much as it is an AT/power set thing. So I guess my overall answer is “It depends”. LOL

Some players make the playerslot.txt file READ ONLY so that the game will not rewrite the file and mess up the order. Of course, if you do this any new characters would t be listed. So then you’d need to make the file able to be written over again. Then lock it down again. Kind of a hassle. However, for the most part my order has been retained after I edited the file. The game doesn’t seem to be putting my characters in random order like it used to. Could just be me though.

I e got 2 characters with bad pun names… Agent Snipe Hymn and Ice Scream Crone

Wait! I want to be smacked!!! What now?

And for any Devs who are reading this thread… https://askagamedev.tumblr.com/post/96091066151/understanding-the-angry-gamer/amp

@Snarky, please make sure you’re not taking this too far. Don’t let anyone run you out of the forums or a game you love… or anything you enjoy. It seems more like you’re punishing yourself more than anyone else. Of course, we will be punished as well because we won’t have your snarky face around to laugh with. Do you mean to punish us too? Further, your “consequence” should match the crime. An eye for an eye, not a beheading for an eye. Really, unless you don’t enjoy the rest of us anymore, it would be a good idea for you to continue doing what you enjoy with the people who are your friends. I understand you’re upset, and don’t dismiss that. Just keep balance in mind my friend.

OK! I've finished writing up the quick "Understanding Folder Paths" tutorial. Please look it over and let me know if it's easy enough for someone who knows very little about computers to understand. https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/User:BlackSpectre/Testthis

Well, I only added the most common folders players would create in the data folders. There are many more potential things players could add. They’re completely optional and the data folder is completely blank unless players mess around with it. I guess I could add links to the folders… the first could link to /customwindow, the second to /popmenu, and the third is a bit trickier as it is typically used to replace the maps but with the advent of the COH modding app, it’s been replaced by the \assets\mods folder. I thought about leaving the data folder blank, and I still can, but part of me thought it would be useful for people to know a couple things that would go in it. Maybe it’s more trouble than it’s worth though and it would be better to remove the sub folders? Most of the folder names tell you what is stored in that folder… screenshots in \screenshots, costumes in \costumes, \builds in \builds, etc. I didn’t think any additional description is necessary. However, I did note 4 settings files and their locations in the \live folder because what’s in the “live” folder is not self explanatory, and the playerslot.txt file is also not described by \account. The devs and current devs did and do a pretty good job naming files by what they hold or their purpose, so even describing the files that would go in \architect, for example, is a bit redundant. A guide might be better for something like that. More and more I’m trying to keep things simple and brief. Clear and concise. People’s eyes glaze over so easily when they see a lot of text… as your eyes are most likely already glazing over by the text I wrote here. LOL 🤪

https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Veteran_Levels

What do you mean it looks weird? Is it the colors that are weird? The best way to show a folder structure is with a kind of flow chart, but this would be an image and not text. I tried to create the folder structure with only text... but maybe I should create a graphic? If I did that, technically I should put the root folder at the bottom, and then build the folder paths up... like a tree to stay with the analogy. However, the file browser apps show the tree sideways... the root folder is typically on the far left, and the sub-folders spread out to the right. My sense is to keep it sideways so that things are kept consistent, but what do you think? That would mean the tree is growing sideways... that OK? I tried to explain file paths once before in this article https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Default_Folder, but although accurate, after watching the youtube tutorials maybe the way I explained it is still a little too sophisticated and specific to the game. Thanks for the references and YouTube tutorials. I did grab some language and examples from the first one. The second one was fairly high level. And I think you're right. I should add a file path tutorial to the page. 🙂 P.S. I added line separators to the Folder/Directory Structure. Does that help?

https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Homecoming_Installation_Folder_Locations I tried to write it so that anyone could understand it even if they don't have a lot of "computery" knowledge. I'm not sure I succeeded, but I hope it will help.

I've created a new page for the wiki to help players understand where their game files are located, and which folders they need to save or backup. This is intended for players whose knowledge of computers is fairly limited, so if you think of a way I can improve it for people, please let me know. I'm talking to you @Snarky! (as well as anyone else including GMs). Also, if I've made any mistakes or omissions, please speak up. 🙂 https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/User:BlackSpectre/Testthis This is my test page or draft, so it's not really up at the wiki yet. P.S. Can you think of a better title, or is "Homecoming Installation Folder Locations" OK?

It’s very easy to do a fresh install. The only issue is saving the files that you want to save… screenshots, window, option, and keybind settings, builds, possibly logs. Homecoming has actually made that a lot easier than in previous installs by separating and laying out the data folders that players would like to keep. Hmmmm. Maybe that would be a good page to write up at the wiki… hasn’t thought of that before. 🙂