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. 🙂

OK. Done! Finally done. Phew that was a lot of work! Glad it's behind me. 🙂

BTW, if my understanding of the main problem is correct, all that really needed to be done to the bind system in order to make profiles work is... well... nothing. We'd need to add a popup message to the profile drop down list in the Options window that warned that in order for the profile to work, the keybinds need to be reset, and ask if the user wants to reset, and then ask if the user would like to save their current keybinds first... yes or no -- yes or no. With the keybinds reset, the profiles would be unhindered by custom binds and would work perfectly. After, custom binds can be loaded if desired, then saved if desired using /bind_save_file. Not super user friendly, but no worse than the bind system has been for 20 years. So much easier to write this code, and you wouldn't need to touch the bind system at all. You could literally use a /bind_load_file command to load in the profile binds from the server. The only additional thing we'd be coding is a new keybind profile drop down list sequence with a couple prompts and if/then statements. Easy peasy. This is why I recommend just rolling back the bind system to pre-Page 7 and starting over... in a much simpler way, making as few changes to the system as possible. Less headaches. Less hassle. Less heated tempers. Everyone would be happy.

Now let's talk CUSTOM KEYBIND PROFILES! A routine would need to be setup in the Keymapping tab of the Options window that allowed users to create and name their own custom keybind profiles. A popup or merely check boxes or a drop down list would ask the user to decide on which default profile the user would like to start with... Modern, Classic, Joystick, or Launch. Then the system would write that custom profile name into Keybinds.txt along with the chosen default profile. A designation of which default profile the user chose for the custom profile would need to be noted next to the custom profile names in keybinds.txt so that the system would know which default binds to use if the user ever wanted to reset the binds of their custom profile. There would need to be a way to delete custom profiles from the Options window too. The default profiles would not be able to be deleted, but they could be hidden from the list. The system would then need to find that profile in keybinds.txt and delete it and all its binds... carefully. This would be a user initiated action, so altering keybind.txt has been user authorized. Using keybinds.txt to store all the profile names and then communicate them to the bind system would let users add or delete custom profiles from the profile list in the Options window just by editing keybinds.txt. Saving the custom profile names on the server would require an extra step of going into the Options window and deleting them that way. I'm partial to allowing users to add and remove custom profiles by editing keybind.txt, but that's me. Maybe both methods could be used? The idea is to continue to make keybinds.txt central to the bind system. Maybe the server could act in a backup capacity? Making things safer. Some rules would need to be set in place for naming conventions that would not conflict with the server, and that's about it. Everything else was already setup in the post above. How the system handled the custom profile names doesn't really matter much. One way would just to read the keybinds.txt file and bring up a list of existing profiles that way. Or the custom profiles names could be saved on the server in addition to keybinds.txt. It would be kind of cool to be able to just edit keybinds.txt and add our own custom profiles to it right there without needing to go through the Options window to do it. We'd need to follow the naming and other conventions but that's about it. WHY CUSTOM KEYBIND PROFILES YOU ASK? Because it would bring so much more customization, utility, and ease of play to the game. The system I laid out above is so easy that every player could take advantage of it, not just tech savvy people. Imagine the amount of keybind customization that could take place! A player could have a set of binds for every Archetype, or for individual characters. They could decide to make categories like I did, Ranged vs Melee, and use those to setup all of their characters after they create them. A profile for every use, and a use for every profile. "It is a dream I have." Camelot is just ahead of us...

One of the other things I noticed while testing out the new bind system is that if you have a different profile currently selected, and you load in your binds (/bind_load), the game will automatically switch to whatever keybind profile name is saved in the keybinds.txt file and load the binds into there instead of the keybind profile you are currently set to. This behavior has potential to cause trouble. What if we wanted to load custom binds into both profiles? The game would only let us alter one profile. For people like me, it's not a hugemungous problem, I'd just edit the keybinds.txt file, change or delete the profile name, and re-load my binds into the specified profile. However, for people not so bind-savvy, it's a big problem. I surmise that it's designed as a safeguard to prevent people from loading their custom binds from one profile into another accidentally. But, and hear me out, if custom binds are intended to be copied across ALL profiles, then there's no reason for the game to switch me to another profile. It wouldn't matter what profile I loaded my binds into. All the game would be doing is switching me to a profile that I DON'T WANT TO BE SWITCHED TO. Not exactly the best design for a user friendly system. On the other hand, if custom binds are loaded into only one profile, then the current behavior prevents me from loading them into a different bind profile than I want them to be loaded into. There are many possible solutions to this problem, but the easiest solution is to add all 4 keybind profiles into keybinds.txt and have the system parse the file whenever binds are saved or loaded. This way whatever binds I wanted in my currently selected profile will go into my currently selected profile. The binds would be saved under that profile section in keybinds.txt. It will potentially make keybinds.txt larger by 4x. So what? If the bind system does not just load in the entire keybinds.txt file, but only that portion for the currently selected keybind profile, it's a wash. Negligible additional burden on the system. Even better, the bind system can be left working ALMOST as it always has. All binds could be loaded into the server, not just the custom binds. Same as before. It would not cause trouble because custom binds would no longer be saved across every keybind profile... only the selected keybind profile. SO MUCH EASIER than asking the game to filter out custom binds from default profile binds, matching them, and then loading those custom binds across all profiles without considering whether or not the user WANTS those custom binds in every profile. If people accidentally load in custom binds into the wrong profile, it's really their fault... BUT all they would need to do is reset their binds for that profile. If they have the custom binds that they wanted for that profile saved, they could then just reload them. From the user's viewpoint, it's not any different than the bind system that we've been using for 20 years... except for the addition of more profiles and keybinds in the keybinds.txt file. If we make a mistake, opps! Then we just reset or reload our binds for that profile. Easy peasy, and it would work exactly the same as it always has except for the need to select a profile (on both the user AND server side). That's it. Nothing else would need to be changed in the bind system. As far as safeguards go, all that would be necessary is a system chat channel message telling the user which keybind profile the custom binds were just loaded into. That would tell us if we actually loaded the binds into the profile we wanted. That's it. So what would need to be done? Alter the bind system to load in ONLY those binds for the selected profile. Save the binds to ONLY the selected profile. Reset the binds to ONLY those for the selected profile. Some keybind.txt management might be put into place, maybe, but in all honesty I think a player could have a blank keybinds.txt file and everything would work fine. The only time the keybinds.txt file would need to be altered by the system is if the user asked it to copy the binds for the currently selected profile into keybinds.txt (/bind_save). Really, nothing has to be managed by the system. If users are editing the keybinds.txt file, there will probably be mistakes... maybe a typo in the profile name? When loading in binds, at minimum an error message would need to be either sent or popped-up to tell the user that the currently selected profile does not exist in keybinds.txt, and abort. Or it could ask if the user wants the currently selected profile added to their keybinds.txt file. If so, the system would just copy the default binds for the currently selected profile into the keybinds.txt file. Make sure it does not delete anything out of the keybinds.txt file. If a profile exists in the file that the system doesn't recognize, just let it lay. More than likely any custom binds under that unrecognized profile are binds the user wanted in the profile to begin with but messed up on the profile name. On second thought, the system doesn't need to do anything other than send and error message to the user. If the user wants the profile copied into their keybinds.txt file, they'll just /bind_save. Easy peasy. Badly written binds can be handled the way they've always been handled. The system rejects them and that's it. Use the same system. This would solve ALL of the problems that I've heard voiced, and it would setup the bind system for the future... custom keybind profiles. 🙂

The best way forward would be to re-post this question in the Help & Support section of the forum, or send in a petition while in game (/petition). My thoughts? Unless you have a bind or something that keeps loading in old options.txt settings, they shouldn't reset. I haven't played much since Page 7 hit, been doing a lot of other things, so don't have any personal experience to share. Sorry.

Maybe. It depends on whether or not the server retains your custom binds until then. There are many variables that could wipe them from the server. Look inside your keybinds.txt file, if there are custom binds in there, copy that file and save it somewhere else on your computer for safe keeping.

Not at all. When you make a new toon the game's default keybinds will be loaded onto your character. If you have any custom binds in your keybinds.txt file, then they will be loaded too. If you don't, then you'll just be using the game's default binds. If you have a lot of custom keybinds saved in keybinds.txt, it would be a good idea to make a copy of it and store it somewhere else on your computer for safe keeping.

I'm finally done with updating the Options Window page! Does anyone have any comments, critiques, suggestions before I put it to bed? https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/The_Players'_Guide_to_the_Cities/User_Interface/Options_Window P.S. Do you like the descriptions for each section under the Windows Tab? I wasn't sure, so I didn't do descriptions for the rest of the options window. What I really want to know is whether or not they're worth putting in the page...

The Keybind Profiles are in that drop down list at the top of the Keymapping tab of the Options window. It has nothing to do with accounts. Apparently, the drop down list was always there, it's just that no one paid any attention to it (there's at least two good reasons for that, but I won't get into it). I know I didn't think about them at all until Page 7 hit. Profiles are different sets of binds. You select one profile and you have its set of binds. You select another profile, and then you have its set of binds instead. For example, let's say I have 2 profiles: Ranged and Melee. If I select the Ranged profile, my F key will be bound to "target_enemy_near", but if I select the Melee profile the F key will be bound to "target_nearest_enemy$$follow". Right now at Homecoming, the keybind profiles are just different sets of default binds: Launch - the default binds as they were when the game started (Issue 0) Joystick - the recommended set of binds for game controllers Classic - the default binds before Page 7 Modern - the new default binds when Page 7 hit I've ony been able to see the binds in the Classic Profile and the Modern profile. There's not much difference. 32 changes in all, but most of them are innocuous. Here's what is different about the Modern default binds compared to the Classic default binds: ctrl+0 "powexecserverslot 10" ctrl+9 "powexecserverslot 9" ctrl+8 "powexecserverslot 8" ctrl+7 "powexecserverslot 7" ctrl+6 "powexecserverslot 6" ctrl+5 "powexecserverslot 5" ctrl+4 "powexecserverslot 4" ctrl+3 "powexecserverslot 3" ctrl+2 "powexecserverslot 2" ctrl+1 "powexecserverslot 1" shift+0 "powexecalt2slot 10" shift+9 "powexecalt2slot 9" shift+8 "powexecalt2slot 8" shift+7 "powexecalt2slot 7" shift+6 "powexecalt2slot 6" shift+5 "powexecalt2slot 5" shift+4 "powexecalt2slot 4" shift+3 "powexecalt2slot 3" shift+2 "powexecalt2slot 2" shift+1 "powexecalt2slot 1" shift+f1 "teamselect 1" shift+f2 "teamselect 2" shift+f3 "teamselect 3" shift+f4 "teamselect 4" shift+f5 "teamselect 5" shift+f6 "teamselect 6" shift+f7 "teamselect 7" shift+f8 "teamselect 8" mousechord "+forward$$playerturn" leftdragworld "+camrotate" mbutton "+camrotate$$camturn" w "+forward$$playerturn" These last 3 support a kind of gameplay that leaves the camera completely detached from the character. In my opinion, those commands are more useful in PVP than anywhere else. They are an improvement I think. The Modern profile moved the "powexecalt2slot" commands from CTRL+# to SHIFT+# Moved the "team_select" commands from SHIFT+# to SHIFT+F# All to reduce finger strain and make room for... And added the "powexecserverslot" commands as default bindings for the first time to CTRL+# All the rest of the default keybindings are the same between the two profiles. So really not too much difference between the 2 profiles. I haven't tested the new mousechord binding yet (when you press and hold both the right and left mouse buttons at the same time). So I'm not yet sure if it's an improvement over "+mouse_forward" or not. P.S. Oh! I forgot to mention one other change. You can no longer save a list of all your keybinds, nor save the default keybinds. You end up with a file that contains only your custom binds, or a blank file.

What I hear you saying, SG, is that adding that one extra step to see all of your keybinds actually hinders people's ability to make connections between what they do and how the whole system works. Hmmmm. You're actually not wrong. For me, who knows a bit about binding, it's not a huge deal... but for someone new to binds... yeah, I see that. It would make it harder by not allowing them to see the whole, but only part of the system. That cause and effect link is a bit more hidden. In light of my recent testing, I think the best course of action right now is to revert the bind system back to the way it was before Page 7, then start over from scratch on how to implement keybind profiles. I'd be happy to help out and lend my support to whoever is tackling this issue. I might have some good ideas (who knows?), and I can definitely help by doing some thorough testing.