BlackSpectre

Some great ideas here! I love the idea of taking baddies we don't see much of at higher levels and having a level 30-45 TF. Raise their levels, and add a few more variations. Let's see, for hero side it could be... Trolls, Hellions, Outcasts, Skulls, Freakshow, Lost, Warriors, Tsoo, Minions of Igneous, Hydra, Warriors, The Cabal, Prisoners So many options!

Upgraded graphics Upgraded artwork Upgraded 3-d models updated engine more complex and fluid combat enemies can kill you just as easily at level 50 as they can at level 1 hazard zones are dangerous no matter what level you are revamped and cooler looking movements and animations customizable power sets (build your own) build in as many cause/effect interactions as possible (fire lights oil, melts ice, burns wood, etc.) power interactions between players to create new effects (wind plus sand = sand storm, wind + fire = AOE, etc.) traps puzzles conundrums! challenges! secret passages working doors for bases make SG bases part of the active world (not it's own instance or zone) wow, so many other things...

If you're interested in survival and power, and admittedly many players are not and are much more casual, but it you're interested in that then starting to slot cheap IO Sets as soon as you can is the way to go. I used to swap all of my SOs out for IOs at level 27. At even con, SOs have a 33.3% bonus. An IO at level 30 is 34.8% (a level 25 IO is 32%). It saves a lot of money compared to buying SOs all the way to level 50. In fact, my Supergroup even instituted a recycling IO policy. At level 50 when we did our RESPEC to put in all the IO Sets we wanted, we would put all our common IOs back in the base's enhancement bins for other players to use (and for us to use on our next character). Saved a ton on $$, and effort too. But now I look for cheap IO Set enhancements to slot as early as I can. Some IO Sets unlock at level 10, but most unlock at level 27. A few unlock at levels in-between too, and then the last unlock is at level 50. The IO Set enhancements have "set bonuses" that common IOs don't have. Set bonuses boost specific attributes and abilities depending on how many of that set you slot. So in order to get the benefit of Set bonuses, I start slotting them early. In practice, sets that I slotted before level 27 are usually replaced with better sets when I hit level 27. I also make sure to buy only ATTUNED IO sets from the auction house, rather than normal IO sets. Attuned means they actually grow in bonus % as you level up. They grow with you. That means below level 27, those attuned IOs will have a bonus less than 33.3%, but it's mostly offset by the set bonuses. For the most part, I have my characters slotted with all the enhancement sets they'll use until they're lvl 50 when I turn level 27. Sometimes I need to do a RESPEC to rework my character's powers and slots when I do this, and usually RESPEC again at level 50 to slot my final IO sets and do any minor tweaks I want. Then it's off to get Incarnate powers. 🙂 I sometimes use the hero planner Mids Reborn to plan out my powers and slots before I hit 27. I think what many players want you to know is that if you don't care about any of this, you'll get along fine in the game... and they're not wrong. I have a friend who doesn't slot any enhancements... ever. They die at least 5 times every gaming session, but their character respawns right away and they get back into the fight. They don't mind dying, and in fact I think they like it. Me? I don't like dying. It's very rare that I die because of the way I build my characters. When it happens it's usually because I wasn't paying attention. Sometimes an enemy legitimately KOs me, but like I said that's rare. Fun too though. I do like a challenge in this game. Here's some references for you (the Homecoming Wiki is your friend): https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Enhancements https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Invention_Origin_Enhancements https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Enhancement_Set_Bonuses https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Set_Enhancements_with_Special_Effects

Speaking of WHEELPLUS AND WHEELMINUS... Taxing my brain for what we could use these two key names for, I came up with the idea to add tilt to the mouse wheel's camera zoom. I left the standard bind on the mouse wheel. So the binds look like this: MOUSEWHEEL "+camdistadjust" WHEELPLUS "+lookup" WHEELMINUS "+lookdown" There are times when I want to zoom in and look up, and zoom out and look down. What actually happens when you spin the mouse wheel changes depending on how fast you spin it. It's interesting. I'm going to play around with this for a few days and see if it annoys or helps.

Yep! They can be rebound. WHEELPLUS and WHEELMINUS are not preset to do anything. MOUSEWHEEL is bound by default to the +camdistadjust command, but that can be rebound as well if desired. All 3 commands deal with rotating the mouse wheel. WHEELPLUS is rotating it forward, WHEELMINUS is rotating it backward, and MOUSEWHEEL is rotating it either forward or backward. The interesting thing is that you can actually bind a different command on each mouse wheel key and each command will not only work, but 2 of the commands will be executed at the same time (either MOUSEWHEEL & WHEELPLUS or MOUSEWHEEL & WHEELMINUS). Check out the wiki page, I have little notes next to most of the confusing or potentially problematic keys. And yes, I prefer ENTER/RETURN as it's bound by default, but not everyone does. Many add an AFK bind to the key, but they still keep the "show chat$$startchat" commands on it. Others might prefer some other way to doing things... meh. All good. Already did. I was lucky enough to be visiting a friend for vacation, and he had 4 other Mac keyboards (I already had 2), and he allowed me to use them to test. Was pretty cool. What I did notice is that one Mac keyboard needed to hold down SHIFT and press the F13 and F14 keys for the game to register them. The F keys on other Mac keyboards worked as expected. Yep, the Windows key is a pain. But it's a known pain. PC gamers all over the world disable the Windows key to prevent them from accidentally pressing that key and activating the start menu in the middle of playing games, blocking the screen while simultaneously changing the focus from the game and booting them out into Windows. Some go looking for a gaming keyboard that has a switch that disables the Windows key, or a keyboard that is so old that it doesn't have the Windows key. Others disable it by editing the Windows registry, but I've found the easiest and quickest solution is to use a little free app called Winkill. You put it where ever you want on your hard drive, and create a shortcut to the .exe file. When you run it, it pops up in the system tray (the little rectangle that pops up when you click on the arrow in the lower right corner, next to the time). You just click it in there to toggle the Windows key off, click it again to toggle it back on. To be clear, it's actually not disabling the key, it's disabling the shortcut assigned to the key that pops up the Start menu. This way you can decide if you want it on or not. It stays off until you toggle it back on or you restart your computer. I've added it to my start items so that it starts up automatically when I boot up my computer. Great little app. Thanks for checking out the key names. I try to be thorough and empirical, but it always helps to have someone else check things too. 🙂 P.S. The only key names I did not test were the 3 Japanese keyboard keys because, well, I don't have a Japanese keyboard.

I had to look up “edgelord” and “4chan”. Learned something new! Man, “edgelord” is way too cool sounding of a word to describe the type of people it references. Similar to “Starlord” in cool-soundingness. LOL The only thing I have to add to this conversation is a few slash commands: /ignore /petition

So is that how discord is mainly used… live chat?

Just a heads up, after looking through the data files of the game, I have found about 15 additional key names not previously documented that can be used with binds. I've added them to the Homecoming Wiki. Off the top of my head, some of the new key names are: F13, F14, F15 ENTER, RETURN RWIN LWIN WHEELPLUS WHEELMINUS 3 JAPANESE KEYS (KANA, CONVERT, & KANJI) and a bunch of secondary key names. When I was updating the wiki page, I was surprised to find out that the original ParagonWiki page was taken from a post of mine from way back on the Live forums. I didn't realize it at first, and then slowly it dawned on me, "Wait -- a -- minute...." LOL Anyway, with the addition of the new key names, the list of key names is now officially complete. I thought it was complete before, but actually having the game code to look at helps to know it for certain. 🙂

More info... https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Default_Folder

Ice Scream Crone (ice/sonic controller)

An oversimplified way of thinking about it is... every player has a base 75% chance to hit a mob. Subtract the mob's defense, if any, and you have your final to hit chance. To Hit chance - defense = final to hit chance. Buffs and debuffs modify this chance. A +10% to hit buff (not Accuracy buff) would give you an 85% to hit chance, minus the enemy's defense. Only a portion of accuracy buffs from enhancements count toward a to hit buff. Defense debuffs against an enemy can be very useful if the enemy has a high defense (most don't). The to hit chance you can have is capped at 95%. So you will always have at least a 5% chance of missing. -------------------------------------------------- Now if your focus is defense for survival rather than offense... enemies have a base 50% chance to hit you. Subtract your defense, and that will be their final to hit chance against you. So... say you have 45% defense. Subtract that from their base 50% chance to hit, and they have a 5% chance to hit you. That's why the defense soft cap for you is considered 45%. It's soft because you can actually have higher defense than 45%. Buffs and debuffs (and other factors) then modify this base to hit chance. Mobs can never have less than a 5% chance to hit you. In actual gameplay, the difference between 40% defense and 45% defense is HUGE. That extra 5% is totally worth it! ------------------------------------------------- Most mobs in the game have +0% To Hit and a base 0% Defense, particularly minions and lieutenants. More frequently, Bosses, Elite Bosses, and Arch-villains have some defense and to hit buffs. Of course all of this depends on the powers that the enemy has, their level, rank and a bunch of other factors, and there are numerous exceptions, but in general gameplay pretty much resembles this. ------------------------------------------------ Oh, forgot to mention damage types. Each damage type works against that same type of defense. For example, a fire attack will be calculated against fire defense. Energy attack vs energy defense. Cold attack vs cold defense, etc. The majority of attacks in the game have a smashing/lethal damage type. Energy is the next frequent. Then fire and the rest. Cold and Psionic are the least resisted damage types. In general, most players would recommend you focus on increasing smashing/lethal defense and resistance over other types... if you have to make a choice. There are also 3 positional defenses... ranged, melee, and AOE (Area of effect) defense. Ranged defense means defense against all ranged attacks no matter what damage type they have, for example. Melee defense is against all melee attacks, and AOE defense is against all AOE attacks. This speaks more to play style than powers. If your character is mainly fighting from range and avoids getting up close, ranged defense would be a good pick.

Mimic. Basically become any enemy you target and mimic, including their power sets, stats, and auras. Your character’s base powers would be sprint and brawl. Your base stats basically non-existent. You’re a normal with the ability to steal other’s powers and abilities. There can be a long timer for how long you can maintain the mimic. Mimicking EBs and AVs would be possible, but scaled down. Doppleganer. The same as above except you also duplicate the enemy to look exactly like them. Shape shifter. Change into any animal or creature. So many different ways to implement this. Easiest would be powers that temporarily altered stats and forced costume change emotes. Powers that altered stats and costumes would be mutually exclusive and could not be used at the same time. Chemistry. A powerset of interactions. Powers within the set can interact with each other to create even more powerful effects or completely different effects. Fire mixed with air = aoe. Ice mixed with heat = water. Dirt mixed with wind = sandstorm. Water mixed with fire = steam.

Yeah, but you’re a GM and have the cheat codes!!! 😜 kidding! Kidding! Sheesh. One little comment…

Welcome home, everyone! One of the seriously great things about COH is that you can just play for 30 min or an hour, and there's no drawback. There are missions that are longer... WAY longer... but you can choose not to do them, or when you'd like to do them. For someone who works, has a family, or has little free time this game is great.

OK! Here is the wiki page I just wrote up about the -profile launch parameter. I hope everything I wrote is accurate, not misleading, and useful. https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Profile_(Command_Line_Parameter)

Also, if you just copied over your old COH installation files, do a fresh, clean install. Then copy over your specific data from your old files. Folders you probably want to copy are: Accounts Data Screenshots Settings/Live (only the files in the Live folder really, and if you want to keep it clean, don't copy over gfx.json or client.json.). the Live folder holds any settings configurations you might have saved, including binds.

So in conclusion... the gist I've been getting from these comments and others is this. Having a help window at all is outdated. Now that I've had time to think about it, I don't disagree. Most players, including me, just google for answers. Maybe the best thing for a help window would be for it to have a pleasant welcome to homecoming message and then only 6 links to various help methods. Maybe it would look something like this: Welcome to City of Heroes: Homecoming! City of Heroes® brings the world of comic books alive in this massively multiplayer 3D online universe. Craft your hero's identity and join millions of Hero characters in a constantly expanding universe, explore the sprawling online metropolis of Paragon City™, and battle a host of foes including criminals, villains, and monsters. For assistance, try one of these options: Ask fellow players in-game using Help Chat. Ask a Game Master for help in-game using a petition. Post a question at the Homecoming Forums. Post a question at the Homecoming Discord server. Find the answer at the Homecoming Wiki. And that's it. Delete all other information in the help window. Make it simple, easy to update, and uncomplicated.

Many commands are depreciated or obsolete, and others can be used in a way that taxes or even breaks the game. All of this can cause trouble. Having been testing commands for over year now, I have 3 bits of advice for any would-be tester... 1. Create a new account and use it only for testing. 2. Check the Windows registry after every use of a command. 3. Use the Beta server. A new, separate account is a good idea because some commands appear to impact files residing on the Homecoming server (or alter character files that we have no access to). Specifically, email commands. I didn't realize this might happen when I did some testing and ended up breaking the ability for one of my characters to send global emails. I tested things using a level 50 character, with incarnates and all... and now I need to delete him, and I'm not sure even that will fix the problem, but it's the only thing I have left to do. Don't bother petitioning the GMs or devs, they can't do anything regarding very technical and odd problems. The general gist is "Once you start messing around with things under the hood, you're doing so at your own risk." If I had created an account just for testing, I could have just deleted that account when problems arose. No harm, no foul. But using one of your actual characters in your real account is a recipe for disaster! None of this is a complaint, merely a warning to future testers. COH is now a portable application. This means it no longer uses the Windows registry to save settings or configure the game. The vast majority of commands were created when the game still used the Windows registry, and many of these old commands work by changing registry entries. That also means they no longer work for the current, modern game. Worse, adding registry entries for a game that doesn't use them might cause conflicts and a lot of trouble. Typically, in these cases the game just crashes, but some changes can be less obvious. An alteration to the Windows registry is something that happens behind the scenes. In fact, since the Windows registry is the central nervous system of Windows, it's generally advised that the average user avoid messing with it. The bottom line is, any Windows registry entries that a command might make need to be deleted. So far, it appears that commands that alter the registry do so under a specific key and name... Cryptic. So it's just a simple matter of searching the registry after using each command and deleting the Cryptic entry. This is kind of a pain. I researched and wrote up a quick batch file script to help with this. Using Notepad, copy and paste the following text and then save the text file as a .bat file. :: This checks the Windows registry for "cryptic" @echo off setlocal EnableExtensions EnableDelayedExpansion reg query "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Cryptic" if not errorlevel 1 ( Msg * "CRYPTIC exists in the registry" ) else ( Msg * "Registry is clean" ) endlocal When you double-click the batch file it will check the Windows Registry for the Cryptic entry. So this will tell you if the command changed anything in the registry. I'm a little skittish about deleting stuff in the registry, so I didn't write that capability into the batch script. You'll have to delete any Cryptic entries manually by using the Regedit command. Using the Beta server is not absolutely necessary, but it can make testing a specific command a little easier. In the Beta server you can instantly set the level of the character, add or remove badges, accolades, salvage, and pretty much everything else. No need to play a character to level them up or acquire a specific item. Faster and easier. And that's it. Hope this helps someone...

Awesome. So if we created a new profile, say "Bob", the game would load that profile on startup instead, but there's not much there because I had just created it and haven't changed and saved settings yet? When the launcher "communicates" with the game through -profile, is it writing or re-writing parts of the "live" profile each time it launches? Is that how it works? Also, if I understand correctly, the game will not overwrite the "live" profile (or any profile) except to add changes for settings and such? The basic information on file and package loading will remain unless changed by the launcher (and that would require a patch or update for the launcher)?

Thanks guys. I have one last question I think... it's about -profile. I made a new post about it here.

What does the -profile launch parameter do? So... I'm a bit confused which makes writing up a wiki page about it difficult. It appears that the command will create a sub-folder in Settings and also Logs for whatever name you use for the profile. For example, -profile Bob. It also creates a client.json file and a gfx.json file and places them in the "Bob" directory (or whatever you named the profile). There is very little information in either of these files. According to /Logs/Launcher/launcher.log, the Homecoming launcher uses this command line to launch the game: cityofheroes.exe -profile live -auth 51.161.76.201 -assetpath assets/issue24;assets/live Notice the use of "-profile live" in the above string. Is the command re-creating a new "live" profile each time the game is launched? Or does it just point the client toward the correct profile for it to read? If we run the game without the launcher, do we need to use the "-profile live" command, or will that end up messing up the "live" profile the launcher previously created? Also, I read that the -profile parameter is meant to be used with the launcher, but if so, why does it seem to work for cityofheroes.exe? If anyone could shed some light on this for me, I'd greatly appreciate it... P.S. This is probably the last question I have about launch parameters. After this one, all I have left is a bunch of graphics commands to test.

Thanks, @Michiyo . Everything you said was very helpful! And you too, @Tock

Sorry man.

OK, but why don't -assetpath piggs -assetpath homecoming work? Shouldn't they? In the patch notes it says: Further, in a discussion later in this post the Homecoming dev @CURATOR says: So you know what I'm doing... I'm trying to figure out and learn how to use the various command line parameters in the game, specifically in this case -profile, -legacylayout, and -assetpath. I really have no intention of playing COH using a Windows shortcut, but asking how to use the commands in a windows shortcut would basically tell me how to use the commands and also what their purpose is. I figured it was an easy way to answer the question without putting too much effort into an answer. But if anyone would like to give me the full and wordy explanation, that would be wonderful too. I'm just trying to be considerate. I am puzzled about why -assetpath piggs -assetpath homecoming doesn't work? Are they broken? Were the directions bad to begin with? Did something change?

Hi, What is the correct or preferred command line parameters for running City of Heroes with a Windows shortcut? After reading patch notes, I followed the directions and tried this: C:\Games\Homecoming\bin\win64\live\cityofheroes.exe -auth 51.161.76.201 -legacylayout -assetpath piggs -assetpath homecoming But it returns with an error popup stating: "Unable to locate bin/clientmessages-en.bin" I then poked around in the game files and came up with this, and it appears to work: C:\Games\Homecoming\bin\win64\live\cityofheroes.exe -auth 51.161.76.201 -legacylayout -assetpath assets/issue24 -assetpath assets/live Which is the right way to do it? Is there a better or easier way to do this? Thanks!