BlackSpectre

Those are all good things the player needs to consider when estimating the time to complete a task force or trial. However, those things will not be visible in the data… which is why you don’t want to use them when anayzling the data. For example, if the data shows that 90% of all task forces are completed between 30-40 minutes, then the estimate I would go with is that range… 30-40 min. I might even state the percentage… 90% completed within 30-40 min. The data might show that 50% are completed in 20 minutes, while 40% are completed in 45 minutes. And then 10% scattered all over the place. This might indicate the times for speed runs (20 min) and kill all runs (45 min). Not conclusive unless additional testing was done to confirm the times, but it definitely shows a pattern. The best way to communicate the patterns in the data is through a graph. i’d probably get completion times for 1 year’s time. That should probably be good enough.

If you’re playing in fullscreen try borderless or windowed. If you’re playing in borderless or windowed try fullscreen. Might work. Maybe.

You can do all sorts of things with numbers and statistics, and actual data can tell you all kinds of things. A range from the fastest to the longest is useful, knowing how long the vast majority of trials and task forces take to complete is very useful, and knowing an average is also very useful. The idea is to get an ESTIMATE or an idea of how long it might take, not to nail down an exact time. You are right that there are too many variables to settle on an exact time that is true for everyone. That's not the goal. The goal is to get an idea of about how long it might take, a starting point, that's all. Then it's up to you to factor in the other variables, team size, player skill, speed run or kill all, etc. Patterns in data have the possibility to tell you almost exactly how long a trial or task force might take to complete, or potentially tell you nothing worthwhile. It all depends on the data. And without seeing the data, it's impossible to draw any conclusions about it.

Hello my favorite devs, How easy would it be to data mine the completion times for each of the game's trials and task forces? The best format would be in a spreadsheet form (but any format would be fine). I could do the data analysis and plotting with the data to see any important patterns and to get the average, mode, and range. This information would be HIGHLY useful for players when trying to decide on whether or not to take on a task force or trial. Anyway, I'm only asking if something like this would be easy and fast. I don't want to take up much of your valuable time. If it would take a lot of effort, just disregard and file it under pie in the sky. 🙂 Thanks a bunch!

https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Paragon_Dance_Party

GREAT suggestion, @Greycat! In my SG we've made an actual Paragon Savings and Loan bank with tellers and everything. We have 8 storage racks for COMMON (white) salvage, 4 for UNCOMMON (yellow) salvage, and 1 for RARE (dark orange) salvage. Each rarity of salvage has its own safe deposit box room. Proportionally it works out almost exactly, but for it to work well we need 1 more storage rack for Rare salvage. We have 5 enhancement storage bins, and there's really no way to get rid of one of those. Total = 18. You're right. When we first got to Homecoming we needed to Common salvage storage, but now we don't really need the Common storage anymore. It's easy enough to buy. My problem is that it would require an entire re-design of the bank inside my SG base if we were to get rid of the common salvage racks. It would be a lot easier just to add one more storage rack. However... You're giving me some ideas. I might be able to get rid of only one wall of Common salvage storage racks... and that might look OK. Maybe. I'll ponder it a bit. That might be a solution, @Greycat! Thanks for the suggestion, and thank you to everyone else who chimed in! You guys are great! Here's what one of the safe deposit rooms looks like in my base, just so you can see what I mean about re-designning...

Great minds think alike... Yep, I've done this exactly as you describe with mule and everything, but it's a pain. Having all my salvage in one SG is so much easier. Totally a quality of life problem. Exactly. Same. Once in a while, I or my SG mates need to craft an IO. I just want to make sure I have everything needed in the base for easy use, and right now I don't have enough storage for all the different types of Rare salvage.

Well, I've done it... I've run out of storage space in my SG base. Would it be possible to raise the storage item limit from 18 to 20? Just 2 more salvage storage racks would make a world of difference in my base! If that's not possible, how about doubling the amount of salvage a storage rack can contain, from 100 to 200? This would solve my problem too, and free up 6 more storage racks if I ever needed them as an added bonus.

I haven't checked the other Incarnate trials, but I'd wager their active participation requirements are very similar to BAF. I've done some more testing, and have figured out a few more things. I think I'll edit my first post above and add the things I've learned. There are still a few questions left unanswered, but for the most part I'm satisfied that I've answered what "active participation" means in BAF. 🙂

I do it all the time! But then I realize I'm looking down at people... 😉 I think it's a matter of personal preference/experience, whether you like trees going up or down, or sideways. I don't think any way is particularly "dumb" though.

Well, after giving it a lot of thought, I've settled on some names. Unless anyone objects, from now on I'll be calling them: Invention Origin Set Individual Enhancement Bonus (Individual Enhancement Bonus) and Invention Origin Set Enhancement Set Bonus (Set Bonus)

It's a recipe "tree", and trees grow up toward the sun (not down). So... Here's something you can find in some Guides, but is not mentioned by Mender Ramiel... the incarnate power slots unlock from bottom to top. You unlock them by gaining incarnate experience. Incarnate XP is gained through gaining Veteran levels and XP after level 50. Incarnate XP is gained simply by killing things. Now here's the good stuff... if you would prefer to start building your incarnate powers in a different order than bottom to top, you need to unlock the other incarnate slots before you can start crafting those powers. The FASTEST way to gain incarnate XP is to run or tag along on XP farms in Architect Entertainment. In less than 1 hour you can unlock all of the incarnate slots. In addition to XP, while farming you'll also get many incarnate threads dropped. Each defeated boss has a chance to drop a thread. And lastly, you'll probably reach Veteran level 3 while XP farming, which means you'll also earn 20 Empyrean merits! Since I run BAF trials a lot, I like to unlock my Lore Pet first, then Alpha, Hybrid, Judgement, Destiny, and lastly Interface. I unlock Lore first so that I can be more helpful in the prisoner phase of the BAF trial while I continue to earn incarnate salvage for my other incarnate powers.

Some of that I know! In incarnate trials, which reward table is determined by how many stages or phases of the trial were completed (with the possible caveats that you were not AFK, were in the zone, and alive at the time the phase was completed). In Issue 24 there were 3 tables of rewards players could earn: 1. Table #1 - super inspiration or 10 threads (this required 0-1 phases of the trial to be completed) 2. Table #2 - a single common piece of incarnate component salvage (this required 2 phases of the trial to be completed) 3. Table #3 - an incarnate component drop table (this required 3-4 phases of the trial to be completed) Issue 25 or Homecoming reduced the number of tables to 2: 1. Table #1 - super inspiration or 10 threads (this requires 0-2 phases of the trial to be completed) 2. Table #2 - an incarnate component drop table (this requires 3-4 phases of the trial to be completed) Issue 24 gave players 10 participation points both individually and for the team when each stage of the trial was completed. A player needed at least 30 participation points (possibly more) to be awarded the component drop table. However, team participation points were also factored into the calculation (not sure of the proportion) so that a player could have less individual participation points than 30 but still reach the threshold by adding in team participation points. Interestingly, this whole participation system was named the Karma system, and the name of the participation points were called KarmaPoints and TeamKarmaPoints. Karma... what you do determines your fate in the future. Totally makes sense! 🙂 Homecoming or Issue 25 must have simplified this system because what the league does matters more than what the individual player does as far as completing stages of the trial. The player doesn't have to lift a finger, attack, or do much of anything to be credited for the stage's completion by the league. The player merely earns the credit for the stage completion by "participating" (I.e., in the zone, alive, and not AFK). The decision was made during live that everyone in a league that has completed the trial will receive at least the Table #1 reward, no matter how many stages they were credited for completing. If I recall correctly, the error that appears merely says that you are unable to rejoin the trial. I can test it though and find out. Players are phased into the trial/zone before the cutscene plays, FYI. I haven't looked at participation requirements for missions, but you are absolutely right. They do have participation requirements. Each mission might even have different participation requirements. No idea. It could be based on completing the goals of a mission, how many enemies were defeated, how much time was spent in the mission, or all of the above. I did see some code that concerned itself with measuring how long the player was "paused" during a zone event, though. I don't want to give the impression that I know everything the code is doing or saying. I'm not a programmer and have never learned a programming language, although I do write pseudo-code using a couple of scripting languages. But I can read, and I can follow sequences and steps and often see where code is pointing, even if I don't always know what the code is pointing to. When I look at the COH code I often feel like a blind man trying to make his way through a maze. Fumbling, fumbling...

Why is "aspect bonuses" confusing? Sets don't have aspects, only individual IOs do. They both buff character attributes (including combat attributes). In fact, an individual enhancement's aspects are character attributes. So then what do we call normal enhancement bonuses? Individual bonuses vs set bonuses? Normal bonuses vs set bonuses? Singular bonuses vs set bonuses? Common bonuses vs set bonuses? IO bonuses vs set IO bonuses? I am hesitant about the last one because set IO bonuses ARE IO bonuses. They are both bonuses from IO enhancements, so differentiating which is which when someone is talking about them could be tricky. Neither the wiki nor the devs in patch notes are much help on this point. Both just call them "bonuses" and rely on the context to convey which type of bonus they're talking about. Maybe call them "non-set bonuses"? What do you think? Any ideas?

ACTIVE PARTICIPATION I read in the wiki that "There is a participation threshold that must be met in order to receive an Incarnate Component table instead of 10 Threads or one Super-level inspiration "consolation prize"." This got me curious, what exactly does the trial consider "participation"? The most the live devs gave us is several things participation is NOT... Tagging targets Healing points or damage points Interrupting powers mid-cast Cycling powers on and off Through testing, it also appears that mouse clicks and button presses also do not count toward participation (for the most part, see below). So then what is it? Well, a quick look through the I24 code, and I saw that the game is actively polling and counting the status of players at each phase or stage of the trial. What the game looks for is: Players in the zone Players in the zone that are alive Players in the zone that are active Players being in the "zone" means three things. First, to be considered in the zone the character must be inside the walls of the BAF. Outside, where players phase into the trial, is NOT considered "in the zone". Secondly, the players must be within proximity of each phase of the trial when it is completed. What this means is, if the phase's goal is to defeat Siege, then the player must be near Siege when he is defeated. How near is uncertain, but it is far enough that most players don't have to worry about it. Lastly, within the hospital is considered outside the zone. Players must be alive in order to receive credit for completing each phase of the trial. Players will NOT receive credit for completing a phase of the trial if they are dead at the time the phase is completed. Further, if a player is alive but inside the Hospital at the time a phase is completed, they will also not receive credit for completing that phase. An "active" player is any player who does not have the AFK status on them. AFK means the player has not pressed a keyboard key nor clicked a mouse button for 5 minutes. Interestingly, I was not able to get a character to go AFK while in proximity to each phase of the trial. REWARD REQUIREMENTS The requirement for players to be awarded the incarnate component drop table at Homecoming is to be actively participating during at least 3 out of the last 4 phases of the BAF trial at the time that a phase is completed (not including the first phase, destroy 40 warworks). Phase 1 does not count toward earning the incarnate component table reward but is required to complete so that Phase 2 of the trial will begin. It does not matter which 3 out of the last 4 phases the player completes. They can be completed in any order. If the player actively participates and receives credit for completing only 2 or less of the trial's last 4 phases, the player will be awarded a choice of a Super Inspiration or 10 incarnate threads instead of the incarnate component drop table. So, what is required to be awarded the incarnate component drop table? 1. The player must NOT have been designated AFK by the game at the time each phase is completed. 2. The player is inside the walls of the BAF, not in the hospital, and within proximity of each phase of the trial as it is completed. 3. The player must be alive at the time the phase is completed in order to qualify for successfully completing the phase. 4. The player has actively participated (see the 3 previous requirements above) in the completion of at least 3 out of the last 4 phases of the BAF. To demonstrate how easy it is to earn the incarnate component drop table, I participated in a BAF where all I did was fly from the entrance point to the tennis court for phase 2. Then moved to the south choke point for phase 3. Then moved back to the tennis courts for phases 4 and 5. I did not activate any power, attack, or press the keyboard or mouse button at any time after I moved to the above locations. I was then awarded the incarnate component drop table at the completion of the trial. I might have went AFK during Phase 3, the prisoner escape phase, but that would only mean that I completed 3 out of the last 4 phases instead of all 4, and therefore still qualified for the drop table. Anyway, I thought I'd share what I've gleaned so far about earning the incarnate component drop table for BAF. 🙂

Hey @tidge, can you point me to the patch notes or the source for the above info? At the wiki, it states enhancement catalysts are "rare drops on a 20 hour cooldown for characters once they have reached level 50." I found this at the Issue 25 page at the wiki: "Enhancement Catalysts now drop from all critters, not just those in Incarnate content. The drop rate has been increased 10 times: it's now 1 in 200 minions, 1 in 66 lieutenants, 1 in 33 bosses." You might be right. Per my notes, the average price of enhancement catalysts 2 years ago was 4.8 mil inf. Yesterday, I didn't see any above 1.5 mil. And today nothing above 1 mil.

LOL!

It's unlikely that the wiki will ever stop being updated. New players constantly trickle in and sign up to edit the wiki. Wiki editors retire, and new wiki editors take their place. As long as there are active players, there will be an active wiki. Yes, agreed. Google is often better than this forums' search engine. I've learned to click the Advanced search settings and then check the "must have all the search words" box. It's the only way I can get search results that are what I'm looking for. I often tweak my searches by using synonyms of my search words and phrases and then searching again.

It's all in the wiki for players to discover whenever they choose. There are very few if any "build-oriented secrets" left after 20 years of game life. Also, consider browsing through the Guides section of this forum. There are many, many EXCELLENT guides written by players for almost every game topic under the sun. You need just look and you will discover treasure...

Yes, the aspect bonuses for attuned PVP IOs scale up as you level just like normal set IOs. Here's some pics... Started with level 20 PVP IO, then attuned it, and slotted it in a level 50 toon. Aspect bonus went up from 15.4% at level 20 to 25.5% at level 50. The aspect bonuses of Un-attuned PVP IOs function just like normal set IOs. Their aspect bonuses do not go beyond their level.

IOs are attuned using Enhancement Catalysts. 1 catalyst can cost between 1-5 mil inf. Meanwhile, at Homecoming, you can buy attuned IOs directly from the auction house for no more than the same amount un-attuned IOs are going for. It's basically a waste of inf to use catalysts. Buying already attuned IOs from the auction house essentially attunes your IOs for free. Therefore, using catalysts to attune enhancements is not recommended. If you are crafting your own IOs, you can put your IO up for sale. Then after it's sold, you can use that inf to buy an attuned IO. Often it can be an even swap, but other times you might lose a little inf. However, any inf you lose would generally be a lot less than the cost of a catalyst (1-5 million inf), so it's still a deal even if you lose a little inf. If you are crafting your IOs, you may not have a lot of inf in the bank. If that's so, consider using Enhancement Converters to change a common, cheap set IO of the same type into the rare, expensive set IO you want. From levels 10-30 I generally use SOs and a few attuned set IOs with special effects (I.e., global procs). At level 30 I replace all of my SOs with common IOs, and usually begin swapping some of those out for attuned set IOs as I continue to level. At level 50, any slots that do not have set IOs in them, get level 50 common IOs (some I boost to +5, some I don't). This is usually done with a RESPEC so I can retrieve all of my lower level common IOs for free (without using Enhancement Unslotters), and then I recycle them by putting them into a storage bin in my base for new characters to use (my next toon will hardly have to buy any common IOs, which saves a ton of inf). I use catalysts only for Archetype and Winter Origin enhancements in order to bump their bonuses up to "superior" level. In general, all of my set IOs are attuned and were bought directly from the auction house. P.S. Looking over the wiki page, I think this statement might not be true: "This has one obvious downside of sunk costs if doing it on more than a handful of IOs (as opposed to slotting origin enhancements and using Upgrade)." If you want to start slotting set IOs right away and do not want to spend the inf replace them every 5 levels, then attuning them is VERY cost effective. If you don't want the set bonuses (which is crazy), then SOs will do just fine. However, slotting common IOs at levels 25-30 is much cheaper than upgrading SOs every 5 levels. Remember, only set IOs can be attuned. Attuning PVP enhancements is not destructive at all! It's just that the benefit of attunement while exemplaring doesn't come into play because all characters are set to the same level within a PVP zone. So there's no exemplaring. If a PVP enhancement is attuned, the enhancement's bonuses (not set bonuses) will adjust to the level of the PVP zone, whereas non-attuned enhancements will not. Yeah, the wiki page is very ambiguous and confusing, and could definitely use some polishing.

I'm writing down notes in Microsoft Word to use when the wiki is editable again. There's a LOT to update, and I keep running into new things and new information that players need to know! I have information about participation quotas and rewards offered in BAF that no one else has documented before, for example, and I know ATC is waiting on a HUGE rewrite of the Experience page. Worse, a significant amount of time is about to free up for me (next week summer break starts), which is when I normally do the bulk of updating and wiki writing. I really hope the wiki is editable again soon.

Actually, PLing was a big part of the game back on live. For the last 4 years before COH closed down in 2012, I was a power leveling fiend! PLing was much more lucrative back then. I made about 300 million inf per week selling my PLing services to players wanting to door sit. Back then a fire/kin controller was considered the top tier Power Leveling build for a fire farm. The trick was to find the right mission to farm/repeat. I remember a circle of thorns mission with a portal that continuously spawned fire demons without end. Definitely an exploit and the devs put an end to that infinitely spawning portal. Then a different fire demon mission became the best PLing mission. As I recall, the devs put an end to that mission making it unrepeatable. Power levelers then switched focus from fire farms to smashing/lethal farms. At this time power leveling had mostly went underground. Players were advised not to talk about PLing in public or to any players they did not know personally. It was still a thriving market and continued to have a lot of activity, but it was mostly under the radar. The Gestapo, I mean the anti-PLing and pro storyline/mmo league appeared to have the ear of the devs, and PLers were more and more berated and condemned… but that didn’t stop us, nor the thousands of players who paid for PLing services from us power leveling black marketeers. Obviously, PLing was something many players enjoyed and wanted to do in the game, but the devs and the storyline/mmo league wanted everyone to play the game their way… and only their way. It was a pretty oppressive atmosphere. Very fascist, anti-freedom, arrogant, and self righteous. talk about tyranny of the majority! And then the game shut down. Now, I have always enjoyed the storylines, teaming, and leveling toons up to 50 the old fashioned way… until around level 40 when the leveling slowed down to a crawl. After 40 I would alternately PL and do missions. but here on Homecoming the atmosphere is a lot more positive, accepting, and inclusive. People are just happy that other players want to play the game, and are happy to help them enjoy it any way they see fit to do so. I can’t imagine COH without PLing. It’s an important part of playing the game. But I also can’t imagine COH without storylines, missions, or role playing either. But that’s just me. Everyone has their own preferences.

I think what might be helpful for new players is a short description of COH that pops up in the GMOTD and some other venues with high visibility. in the description would be a short statement that basically says most of the playable content in the game occurs before level 50. it’s a true statement, objective, and helpful for those who are interested in playing the game’s adventures, missions, and storylines. No judgement or opinion needed or wanted. It will help steer players toward experiencing more of the game, since it is true that in other games getting to max level is basically when the game takes flight. otherwise, a longer description could lay out most of the things commonly done in the game and their processes… doing missions, teaming, soloing, task forces and trials, AE, power leveling, farming, street clearing, flashback system, PVP, etc. A cornucopia of fun and interesting things to do!

The goal here is to set expectations on about how long a TF or trial will take to complete. We need this data to set aside an adequate amount of time in our real lives to accomplish the TFs and trials. There have been many times when I found myself stuck in a TF or trial that took much longer to complete than I had time for. Frankly, I had no idea how long the TF would take when I joined up. This necessitated the entire team to log out so we can log back in at the same time (requires a lot of organization and time management skill on the part of players... definitely NOT a PUG team), log out and abandon my team (I hate to do this), or bite the bullet and stick it out until the end, resulting in various troubles in RL big and small. And then there's player stamina. We all have different levels of healthiness and fitness, both mental and physical, and an estimated completion time would help people decide whether or not they're up to the task. There are many other good reasons to have an estimated completion time too, but I figure these two are the most common. And yes, wait times for the team or league to fill would also be very useful, but I'm not currently trying to bite off that lofty goal. I figure an estimated time to complete trials and TFs would be "good enough" to start so players would have an idea of how much time they'd need to set aside. We can always mention that there may be a wait time to start. Sans data mining, the best option to determine TF completion times seems to me to be anecdotal data from the folks who do these TFs and trials frequently. I really liked the way @Oklahoman Structured his answer into the most common goals for trials, speed runs vs kill alls. From LFG chat that appears to be the 2 major ways the player base has of doing TFs and trials, so why not use them to answer times? These would necessarily be estimates, but hopefully they'd be reasonable or educated estimates from the experts who actually run these things (or join them) often. Over at another post someone suggested using the time-based challenge times to get an idea of how long TFs take. I've made a list, but @Uun's times seem much more realistic, based in real experience. Meanwhile, the challenge times seem very arbitrary and not really based on how long the TFs will actually take to complete. @Uun didn't give times for all the TFs, so if you have a lot of experience running the task forces please fill in the blanks. Once the Homecoming wiki is able to be edited again, I plan to add a completion times column for task forces and trials. In the meantime, here's the list of time-based challenge times that I collected from the Challenge Settings for each task force... Task Force Name Contact Challenge Settings Gold Time (min) Silver Time Bronze Time @uun Player Times The Rule of Three Positron 30 60 90 20-30 Dam Heroes Positron 20-30 The Fall of the Clockwork King Synapse 90 180 360 60-90 A Clamor for the People Penelope Yin 30 60 90 20-30 The Sky is Falling Admiral Sutter 30 60 90 40-50 The Kheldian War Moonfire 30 60 90 30-45 Citadel's Children Citadel 30 60 90 45-60 The MegaMech Cometh Ernesto Hess A Tangled Plot Katie Hannon 20-30 Following Countess Crey Manticore 30 60 90 45-60 (90-120 for kill all) Soul of the Woodsman Numina 30 60 90 40-50 Time's Arrow Imperious 30 60 90 15 (speed run) 45-60 (kill all) Explorers and Exploiters Dr. Quaterfield 30 60 90 The Legend of Ruladak Sara Moore 30 60 90 The Saga of Faathim Justin Augustine 30 60 90 The Saga of Lanaru Faathim the Kind 30 60 90 Ms. Liberty Task Force Ms. Liberty 30 60 90 The Lady Grey Task Force The Lady Grey 30 60 90 Return of the Reichsman Dr. Kahn 30 60 90 15 (speed run) 45-60 (kill all) Alpha Strike Apex 30 60 90 15 The Praetorian Offensive Tin Mage Mark II 30 60 90 15