BlackSpectre

First, the love and warmth I feel for the game, since I first began playing it in 2005, is directly the result of the original team’s efforts, and I am sincerely… grateful. I’m not certain who these questions should be directed to… maybe the powers team? Everyone? THE AGGRO CAP In my view, one of the few flaws in COH’s game design is the ability for tanks to become invulnerable to nearly all attacks, no matter how many critters attack. This poses some problems for game balance, especially when their ability to pull infinite aggro ends up being an unintended exploit. The original solution during live was to slap a bandaid on the problem called “the aggro cap” which to me seems more like a temporary fix than a long term solution. What is your take on the fundamental causes that prompted the implementation of the aggro cap, and what would be some possible ways to address this problem today in a more balanced, integrated, and long term solution? KEYBINDS? Are there any keybind commands that you would have loved to see implemented but weren’t? Or what are some new keybind commands that you would love to see in the game today? Also, can you share any interesting stories you have about keybinds and the keybind system back in the day?

Thanks for the corrections AND the interesting info, @Number Six. I would LOVE to dive deeper into all of this, but for right now I can only spare a few minutes to post real fast and then get back to RL. Anyway, just wanted to say thanks.

You can look up 2 (Classic and Modern) out of the 4 sets of default binds. The other 2 have not been shared, and thus we have no information on them. We might be able to reverse engineer them, meaning press a key or button and record what happens, or use /showbind on every single key, button, and key/button combination... but that's a pain in the neck to do. Very time consuming. Well, @Shenanigunner mentioned it in his meticulously written "wall of text". For me, that is a judgement call and a matter of opinion, but it is absolutely relevant. SG stated that the new profile system is definitely not worth the additional time and trouble the change to the bind system has caused (for players or devs). As the keybind profile system currently is, I agree. The joystick profile has some real potential to be helpful for people that use game controllers. Otherwise.... the Issue One default profile is mere trivia, and the differences in the Modern profile are so small that it's almost silly to have a separate modern and a classic profile. Personally, I would have just posted the modern profile as a Dev Recommended, PVP bind build in an official dev thread at these forums. The same for the Issue One defaults. Personally, I would not have the joystick keybinds be selected as a separate keybind profile, but rather automatically selected when a player selects DEVICES in Options. That way different sets of game controller binds could be customized to work with specific game controllers, with a different configuration for each. According to SG, the current joystick profile is clunky at best, and really just a half measure, and it could use some love. I've never looked closely at game controller binds, so can't really say one way or another. Since page 7 hit, the forums and help chat channel has been hopping with player complaints that their binds no longer work as expected. This is because their "classic" binds were replaced with "modern" binds without notice (or they didn't notice). Again, more trouble than the profiles are worth. On the other hand... the idea of keybind profiles, especially CUSTOM keybind profiles, has a lot of potential, especially if players could share them with each other right in the Options window (probably through global email). But something like this would be a big new feature, and require a lot of coding, which is why in my opinion it's not likely to happen. Sadly. It would be cool, though.

Binds for characters are stored on the game server. When you make a change, it copies that change over to the server. Initially binds are stored in dynamic memory (RAM) but are written to a database file within a few seconds. However, they are also saved in the instance for your character in your game client, which is also dynamic memory. This is why sometimes when you make changes, the binds don't take effect until the game instance is reloaded (by changing zones, for example). The binds were stored on the server, but they just didn't instantly update the game client instance (it's a little bit more complicated than this, but this is the gist). When you reset your binds, the server takes the file containing the default binds for whatever profile you have selected and replaces all of your binds with the default binds from that profile. It also wipes the old binds from dynamic memory on the server, and updates the game client as well. Before I27P7 there was only one set of default binds, now there are 4. If you want the game to restore the default binds from a specific profile when you reset the binds, you'll need to make sure that the keybind profile is listed at the top of keybinds.txt so that no issues arise.

Only for the Modern and Classic keybind profiles/defaults. the Issue Zero and Joystick default binds have not been shared with us yet. Well, @Number Six was kind enough to copy the Modern profile and post it on the forums for me. I then added it to the wiki. Right now we're dependent on Devs to help out, but I have no doubt @Number Six will eventually give us a command to see the defaults and our own binds again (if he doesn't revert the changes). We'll just have to wait.

That's it in a nutshell. I think what SG is saying is that making something less transparent (I.e., more obscured and difficult to use) and applying that to a bind system that is already complicated and befuddling to the general player base... well, that's just a bad idea... especially to new players or players new to binds. Conversely, making things easier to interact with the binding system is a very good idea. He's not wrong. Right now, we can't see what keybinds are loaded into the server for our characters. We don't know what the server is doing, and that's a problem. Did my binds take? Are all the binds I want loaded into the server? What binds are on my other keys, maybe I want to change some of those? Let me just use /bindsave and find out... oh wait, we can't anymore. OK, let me just look at the default binds at the wiki... but are those really the binds that are on my character? Yeah, it's a pretty big problem. If @Number Six comes through with a brand new command to export the binds from the server that are set for our characters, then it's not as big a problem. Still a problem, just not as big. From all that has been revealed, there really was no good reason to alter the way people save and load binds. The keybind limit problem affected very few people, and yet the inability to see the binds on your character affects everyone. If you ever run up against the bind limit, all you do is reset your binds, and you're golden. There was no reason to mess with the bind system, and no clear benefit bestowed as a result. Now, every other function of binds and binding is working as before, which is why people haven't even noticed a change. Old-school binders are still using their old bind files and still loading them into the game. For them, there's been no change since they generally don't even use /bindsave. But for players new to binding, yeah there a big hurdle to jump over now.

Yes. Install Rosetta 2. The install will work great

Wow. Only 5,488 lines of data! LOL Yeah, this might be a case where linking an uneditable, read only spreadsheet to the wiki is a good idea. But we might be able to condense the data into some general categories to give a general, good idea of the Reward Scale situation.... maybe an average of reward scales per mob group? Then we could link the spreadsheet for exact data if anyone wants to look.

A while back, I added the veteran level XP to the Veteran Levels wiki page, and added a link to it on the Experience page. But you know what? Why not put it on the Experience table? Couldn't hurt... 🙂

That's INTERESTING! I wasn't aware of a Reward Scale either, and there's no mention of it on the XP page... and really, there should be. I only found 2 references to "Reward Scale": From Patch notes May 20, 2008: https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Patch_Notes/2008-05-20 From Patch notes from Issue 27 Page 7: https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Issue_27_Page_7 So the Reward Scale has been around since live as well as Issue 25+. There's no mention of the conning system (difference in level between you and your target) )increasing or decreasing XP gain, but it makes sense. More danger, more difficulty = higher XP gain. Less difficulty means less XP. This is also not mentioned anywhere on the wiki. I wonder if the conning scale is consistent across all mobs and levels?

Therein lies the rub... everything in the Unofficial Homecoming Wiki is an exact copy of Paragon Wiki, except for those pages that have been updated. So when you look at Paragon Wiki and look at Homecoming wiki, more often than not you're looking at the exact same data. Paragon Wiki was a colossal effort on the part of hundreds of players who created tens of thousands of pages. As far as I know, the Homecoming Wiki has about 15 players editing and updating it. It's a huge task to update everything, and there is really no way a small group of people can replicate what hundreds of people did in any sort of reasonable timeframe. The recent posts questioning XP gain bumped this Experience page up in priority. So the data we start with is Paragon Wiki data. This Experience page does not appear to have been closely looked at since the Paragon Wiki days. Questions were raised about its validity, so I figured I'd just ask the devs if they have a handy XP table laying around. But a sincere thank you to all of you who took it upon yourselves to go Beta and test out the XP data., especially @lemming and @AboveTheChemist. Thank you. 🙂

Hey guys, I'm not really sure if the forums are the right place to ask my favorite Devs for information to update the Wiki. If there is a better method, please let me know. Anyway, I'm looking for experience gain related data. 1. The amount of experience needed to gain each level. 2. The amount of base experience earned from defeating a minion, a lieutenant, a boss, and AV, giant Monster, etc. at each level. And anything else I haven't mentioned but might bear on this topic. I know there have been many changes at Homecoming so the tables at the wiki are likely very outdated. Thanks a bunch! P.S. Here's the experience data we currently have at the wiki https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Experience

Uiskin (Command Line Parameter) - Unofficial Homecoming Wiki

For the keybinds limit problem due to switching profiles all the time, I'd recommend just adding a directive to the "Keybinds Limit Reached" error message that directs players to reset their binds and then reload them. If I understand the way the server is working (which I might not), resetting all keybinds would reset the bind limit as well. Problem solved. No other changes necessary.

When I was a young hero, I strove to get Invention Origin enhancements because they save you a lot of money in the long run. Changing out Single Origin enhancements every 5 levels adds up to a bunch! I was able to spend a third less on enhancements, because once you slot an IO, you don't have to upgrade it for the rest of the game it still keeps its strength. I thought I was doing great! Then I learned about power leveling, these days also called farming. Using my trusty fire/kinetics controller I mowed through fire missions with a whole team of players just sitting at the door. I charged those players to be sitters. I give them lots of xp, they give me lots of inf. The nerf bat came down on that, but there were still ways to power level using different damage types. I made tens of millions doing that. When I got to Homecoming, I re-created my characters. Then I began power leveling/farming again... but this time I discovered posts from some very smart players about how to build the ultimate power leveler. Using that as a framework, I made my own Brute and began farming in the Architect Entertainment. I usually did not bring other players with me, and had no sitters, but I made moola like you wouldn't believe! Not tens of millions... hundreds of millions very quickly!!! Then I decided to play with the market. The Auction House was a part of the game that I had never really paid attention to. The way to make money there is the same as in real life... buy low, sell high. Luckily, I had about 300 million inf by then, and I used that to start off. I tried a lot of things. Some bit me, most broke even, and some... well, some were spectacular! I made about 11 BILLION inf playing the market. I bankrolled my entire Supergroup, giving them at least 4 billion in all. Now I'm sitting in Comfy City. I don't really want for anything, but I still try to be a little frugal at least. Even a billion can go pretty fast in this game if you don't care how much you spend. I'm not the only one in this situation either. There are MANY players who have built up war chests with vaults full of inf. I only play the market now about once per year, and that's just to replenish what I have spent. If you're ever hating for cash, just yell out in broadcast or local chat and say "I need to upgrade my SOs but I can't afford it. Does anyone have any SOs or inf to spare?" You're likely to get a ton of generous responses. 🙂