BlackSpectre

Yep. Hopefully they're listed at the wiki. I'll look into it and see if the times seem valid. If they pan out, I wouldn't need anyone else's help. Thanks for that idea. NOPE! Looking over the Time-based Challenge times, they appear to be just arbitrary and not based on how long the task forces actually take to complete. @Uun made a list of times over at the guide link at the time of this thread that appear much more accurate and based on actual experience. Unfortunately he didn't list all task forces, but the ones he did list seem authentic. So, I still need players' help to compose a reasonable list of times. Let's continue this over at the post in Guides above. In the meantime, here's the list of challenge times and @uun's... 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

Time-based bonus challenges... interesting idea! My initial attempt at this years ago was to look at reward merits, as the devs mentioned that the amount of reward merits were based on the amount of time the TF or trial took to complete... but this didn't pan out. It was too inconsistent from one TF or trial to another, and ended up not following that general pattern most of the time. So that idea didn't work and I scrapped it. If I could data mine the times, I'd either determine a range like 30-90 minutes based on the spread of the data plots along a bell curve, determine its mode (most frequent time), or calculate an average, or all three! Of these 3, mode seems the most appropriate, with a mention that it could be x minutes longer or shorter. But alas, I have no access to the mines. The next best option seems to me to be anecdotal data from the folks who do these TFs and trials frequently. I really liked the way @oklahomaman 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. 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.

@Oaklahomaman posted some times for trials over in the Guides section, but we need help from the General forum folks to help list times. If you can help it would be awesome! here’s the link.

thanks for that list, Oakley! Very helpful! What about task forces? Here’s a list… The Rule of Three Positron Dam Heroes Positron The Fall of the Clockwork King Synapse A Clamor for the People Penelope Yin The Sky is Falling Admiral Sutter The Kheldian War Moonfire Citadel's Children Citadel The MegaMech Cometh Ernesto Hess A Tangled Plot Katie Hannon Following Countess Crey Manticore Soul of the Woodsman Numina Time's Arrow Imperious Explorers and Exploiters Dr. Quaterfield The Legend of Ruladak Sara Moore The Saga of Faathim Justin Augustine The Saga of Lanaru Faathim the Kind Ms. Liberty Task Force Ms. Liberty The Lady Grey Task Force The Lady Grey Return of the Reichsman Dr. Kahn Alpha Strike Apex The Praetorian Offensive Tin Mage Mark II

Anyone know why I sometimes get this error when first inviting a character into a league in Ouroborus? Could not Invite CharacterName, BlockingAccept The second time I invite them, it usually works fine. I thought at first that maybe it's because the other character was of the opposite alignment, but that tested out not to be true... Is it NOT that they're blocking all invites, and just wasn't fast enough in turning that off. I checked with the player. Is it a glitch/bug?

@Lemming’s suggestion to look at the log file for syntax errors in a popmenu is very useful. Alternately, you could also activate the Console by using “-console” as a command line parameter in the Homecoming Launcher. This will allow you to see the error reporting in real time without needing to find and open a log file.

It's been almost 2 months since the wiki was locked. Is there anything we can do to help speed it along?

Unstoppable is great from levels 1-50, especially if you’re not min-maxing your toon’s build with all the various and expensive tools (I.e., enhancements) in the COH arsenal. Even after level 50 unstoppable can come in handy if you go up against damage types that your toon isn’t built for. So… yeah, unstoppable instead of hospital. 🙂

Does anyone know of a list that tells how long task forces and trials will take to complete on average? I figure one must be floating around out there somewhere but I've never run across it. I've been wanting a list like this since I started playing the game.

The best advice I can give is be completely upfront about how long it will take to complete the task force/trial when you are recruiting. Also let them know that without them the entire team will not be able to complete the task force/trial so you're depending on them to stay. Veterans know how long they take, but newbies don't.

There's no way to hold all the aggro for multiple groups. Taunt is the best power to keep mobs off of squishies, but to be effective when pulling more than 2 groups you need high recharge for it. If you pull too many mobs then even that won't suffice. Also keep in mind that if you are already at aggro cap, the few mobs you aggro with Taunt will break aggro on the same number of mobs who were already aggroed, and they will peal off and attack other targets. Homecoming has been steadily increasing the damage done by tanks because the role of a tank is no longer to hold all of the aggro and keep the team safe. Tanks are really just tougher scrappers.

Sorry, @CertifiedSkrunkly. Some people you can't help. Now you know. Sometimes, the kindest thing you can do is /kick them and then /ignore them. Try not to get too sour. You will encounter more people like this, but they are in the vast minority. Also, consider the possibility that they may be mentally or emotionally disabled in some way, and do not intend to act as they do. There's many more people who you will enjoy playing with and who will enjoy playing with you. So cheer up, my friend! All is well...

They probably just assumed the stuff in Storage was extra, left over stuff no one wanted. Informing others and making them aware is usually the best solution.

Well, people who have the game installed and working pretty much just use it as is and aren’t aware that a new launcher was even created. A current player doesn’t see the new Homecoming launcher in the forums because they’re not a new player and don’t need to download the game. Everything is working fine. No need to look for a new app. Reaching out to current players with an in game email, adding a one line reoccurring announcement to switch to the new launcher on the MOTD splash screen on login, or any number of other ways to reach people would help. Players who rarely interact with the forums never see the announcements there.

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?