BlackSpectre

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!

Not only that but the addition of Issue 24 and 25 stuff that’s never been documented before. Some parts of the Homecoming Wiki are heads and shoulders above the old paragon wiki. On other other hand there are still many, many parts that need updating or completing. The Homecoming wiki is a fork of Paragonwiki, and there is a TON of stuff there! There is so much that it would need tens of people, a small army, to update it in a couple months. I think there’s only a handful of volunteers working on the Homecoming wiki at the moment. They could definitely use more. You pretty much get to choose what you want to work on… within reason. 🙂

Those are all good points. Yeah, probably not a good idea. Oh well. It was a thought. What brought this on was, I was attempting to make a “toggle text macro” bind. These are binds with looping sets of commands all preceded by a “+”. The “+” allows one bind string to be executed on key press, and a second bind string to be executed on key release. I ran into a problem… although mouse events do have a mouseDOWN and mouseUP event (click and release), it doesn’t look like the game looks for mouse button releases; only clicks, double clicks, press and holds, and drags.. at least We definitely can’t bind anything to a mouseUP event. The problem was when I attempted to load in the second bind string, it instantly executed and ended up simply adding onto the previous bind string, making one long string. This prevented me from executing 2 commands that would normally cancel each other out. With keyboard keys, you have the option to continue to hold down a key, giving the first command string time to execute before you activate the second string by releasing the key. Most of the time you don’t really need to do that, just don’t press and release too quickly. Anyway, what I needed for this to work was some sort of delay or stop so that the second macro string would not instantly execute. Adding a second /macroslot command forces another click for the second string to execute. Anyway, looks like “toggle text macros” aren’t possible. Maybe. The weird thing is we have mouse buttons bound to toggle commands using the + prefix. MOUSECHORD for example is bound to the +forward command. On mouse press you move, and on mouse release you stop. So the game has got to be noticing MouseUP events. And the + prefix seems to work. Oh I know what it is! You can’t press and hold on macro buttons. When you do that, the game thinks you want to move the macro to a different power slot. Now that I think about it, I bet I could make a “toggle text bind” on a mouse button, like button4 or Mbutton. But that would be a key bind, not a macro. Anyway, I’m just poking around trying to see how much of what we know about binds can be applied to macros. So far only “toggle text binds” have not been possible. 🙂

I’ve been thinking about about updating my Advanced Bind Guide, so binds and the binding system has been on my mind. Going over in my mind how the whole binding system works, it occurred to me that one of the biggest problems is the tendency for commands to interrupt the next command in the bind string. I think the biggest impact a small change to binds could have would be the Introduction of a configurable /PAUSE slash command. The /pause command would stop the processing a bind command string in the middle of the string (wherever the /pause command was placed,, and then wait for the specified amount of time. This would open up a HUGE amount of possibilities that have never before been possible in the game. I haven’t thought this through thoroughly, and haven’t considered any ways this command could be exploited, but initially it sees like a great idea. Whiteout knowing exactly how the binding system buffers commands and how it would handle a separate command issued right after a pause command in a different string, it’s hard to recommend a large pause. If it was no big deal, the a pause command could even act like a timer. However, if there are cueing problems, then limiting the amount of time that could be pause might be a good idea. I’d propose 0.2 to 3.0 seconds… enough time to let animations process through. Anyway, thought I’d share…

To add a little to what @Michiyo said, you can also manually edit the playerslot.txt file with the Notepad app... rearrange your characters how you want in there, and save it. Then when the game starts it will load the file. Just follow the same pattern in the text file. This also means, if you log into the game from a different computer, it won't have that same playerslot.txt file that you just edited in your game directory. So when you log in they will be out of order a bit. You can, of course, copy that file over to the other computer is you like.

Try lowering or turning off bloom effects. Might help a little with brightness. 2 slash commands that might be useful: /bloomscale and /bloomweight To turn off particles, you can use /noparticles To make a macro, just type the following into chat and press enter (and replace "noparticles" with whatever command you want). The above command names are also links to the wiki for more info... /macro "SFX" "noparticles 1" P.S. If you want to create a single button to toggle the command on or off, use text macros (or text binds).

Probably 2.5. Put it on par with Lockdown and Holds. But it depends on whether or not the base mag for most stun powers is raised by 1. If not, then go higher... maybe 3.5 (unless it's a purple IO, then 4.5). Oh, wow! The power, Stun, in Energy Manipulation is a mag 2-3 stun. Look at that! An actual good stun power! Single target, though... and it's a tier 6 power. Let's say we increase the stun mag for all stun powers. This power would be mag 3+1. That makes it able to stun bosses, which is completely reasonable since it's a single target, tier 6 power for a blaster and also does very little damage. Further, the stun mag is split into 2 separate effects... a mag 2 that lasts for 6.25 secs, and a mag 1 that lasts for 3.125 secs. That means that bosses, if effected, would only be affected for 3.125 secs. These are base values, of course. We can increase the duration with other IOs to approximately double the duration. Still, a stunned boss for 6 secs max is not really that long. And on top, the power's recharge is long 1.5 min. It would be able to be used about once every battle. There are already a lot of limitations put on this power to ensure that it doesn't become over-powered. Other than that, it looks like all the other secondary effect stuns in Energy Manipulator are mag 2... and this is for secondary effects. I'm not suggesting changing those. Only the mag for primary stun powers. But consider that... secondary effects are often the same magnitude as many primary stun powers. Stunning shot in Archery is mag 3. Disorienting Short in Assault Rifle is mag 3. Oppressive Gloom in Dark Armor is only mag 2. Wow. I'm suddenly struck with how much work this would be to change all of the stun powers in the game. You might have to look at each individual power and evaluate it, then change each one. That's a lot of powers, and a lot of work. Just making a single proc IO is a lot less work. OK. Nevermind. I retract my suggestion to raise the base mag of all stun powers. I think fixing the problems with stun would have higher priority, but that doesn't seem like any less work. The problems reported at the wiki are: A critter that's Disoriented while moving from Point A to Point B will continue moving to B at its original direction and speed. Only then will it begin moving slowly and randomly. Furthermore, Disorienting apparently applies no penalties to flight speed, jump speed, or jump height, so enemies that have automatic, unsuppressible travel powers can move at unexpectedly high speeds. ******************************************************************************* So... let's go back to my original suggestion, the addition of a +2 mag stun proc. 3.0 ppm. I think that's doable, and it would make a big difference.

Hi Michiyo, When you have a chance, can you delete these pages please? auth (Slash Command) console (Slash Command) CoV (Slash Command) demoplay (Slash Command) gfxreset (Slash Command) mtu (Slash Command) no_nv_clip (Slash Command) norenderthread (Slash Command) noversioncheck (Slash Command) project (Slash Command) renderthread (Slash Command) texwordeditor (Slash Command) uiskin (Slash Command) usefp (Slash Command) useTexEnvCombine (Slash Command) I've already redirected all of these to their own command line parameter page, so there's no rush. Thanks a bunch!

What are the preferred steps? Join a voice chat? Use live chat? Or post on the forum?

I see most people are looking at the Help window as an aid to new players. Should anything go in it to help out veteran players? Back on the live forums a player modded the help menu, and the categories he settled on were: Task Forces City Zones Contacts By Level Story Arcs by Level Tips by Type Badges by Category SG Badges by Category Temp Powers by Category Souvenirs by Name Colors by Name Badges By Name Badges in Game Order Contacts By Name Temp Powers by Name Badges Recent Adds

I completely agree! It's an aspect of the power I didn't mention... The typical strategy for defeating lots of mobs at once is using the old herding method. Group up as many as possible in a small area, hit them with AOE holds and immobilizes, and then hit them with blast AOEs. Bam! Dead. It can be a beautiful thing when it's done right. Stun is actually not preferred for this strategy for the exact reason you mention... they wander when disoriented. That means the nice, tight group of baddies spread out, and your AOE blasts end up missing a lot of them. My point is that stun is already weaker or not as effective as other mez powers... You might think that raising their magnitude by 1, and adding a +2 mag proc IO, would bring stun up to par with hold and confuse, but the nature of the power itself would still make it the weaker choice. But at least it would be useful enough to take as a power.

I still like the idea of a +mag proc enhancement for disorient. In addition, I think it would be worthwhile to raise the base magnitude of all disorient powers from 2 to 3. That would put disorients on par with holds and confuses.

It's just placed in a bad location, buried in the Menu list. It really should be more prominent such as on top of the Status window right between Nav and Menu. Or on the bottom of the Target window (there's a lot of space there!). It's very forgettable where it is, and too easy for new players to overlook. Some of the things obvious things to fix in the Help window would be all the lists and info that is incomplete, obsolete, or out of date. Lots of typos in there too. But what I wanted to know is what would YOU put in the window if you were going to re-create it? What would you take out?

If we were to do a modding project where we tried to improve the help window... what information or tools would you put in the help window? How could we make it more useful? I mean, what would be useful for both new players and veteran players? Or should the help window only focus on new players? /helpwindow What the window has right now is: Combat Bases Contacts Nav Powers Rewards Social User Arena PvP Invention System Flashback System Day Jobs Merit Rewards Architect - Creating Stories Architect - Playing Stories Architect - Mission Goals Architect - Custom Characters Architect - Tips Badges

Didn't there used to be a link for the new MacOS version of the Homecoming Launcher somewhere?

UPDATE: The -console command line parameter reports a TON of errors in these modded help files. Almost all of the errors seem to be simple text errors that don't have much impact on the game, or even on the functionality of these help files. These modded help files seem to work fine. That said, the huge number of errors took up almost my entire console screen and pushed all the graphics loading info off the screen. Since I'm currently testing graphics commands, I ended up removing these help files today so I could see what's going on with the graphics commands. Easy enough. Since these files aren't destructive in any way, just deleting them from my data folder is all that was necessary, and the game is back to the way it was. Having had these installed for 8 months, I can't say I've used them a whole lot... I mean, hardly at all. I'm not sure if this is because I'm a veteran COH player and really don't need any of the help information, or if the information in these helps files isn't really that useful? And that begs the question, what would be useful in a help file? I think I'll create a new post for this over in general...

It's pretty easy unless you like to go with very complicated binds. Check this out https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/The_Incomplete_and_Unofficial_Guide_to_/bind If you still have trouble, just ask here or PM me and I can help. 🙂

Hey Michiyo, did you add a link to this on the front page of the Homecoming wiki? If not, it would be a great idea.

Not difficult, but most people also think kicking people for playing in a daze is unfair. The vote-kick system, for example, has never worked to actually kick a clueless player off the league for me. What might be nice is a big notification box that pops up in the middle of the screen with a standard text and audio message "CHECK YOUR CHAT" or something like that. The message would be limited to using it twice. After twice, the league leader would be unable to send it again to the same player until after the current trial has concluded.

You mean you can't find mission teams or people to play with? It is an issue for me as well sometimes. For me, it's timing. I usually only have a limited time to play, between 7-10 PM PST. So although I'm more than happy to meet new people and make new friends, peeps aren't always logged in at the same time. In addition, I have a group of 3 regular friends who log in every now and then. When they do, I need to go help my SG... so it puts a cramp in making new friends sometimes. In all my years of playing, no one has ever offered to help me go help my SG. Meh. Worse, those 3 friends sometimes lure me into playing other games... gasp! Again, limited time. During the summer I have more time, but I'm also doing things like going on vacation, tackling big projects I've put on hold, and a lot of other more mundane stuff. The more I think about it, the more it seems this little app by @Michiyo would really help here... you could set it to look for certain names of players (not sure you could search for global names though...

Wow! What a great idea, Oakey! The best method I've found to wake up players who have been passed the league star by the BAF bug is: 1. /macro "PASS BACK STAR" "tll $name, PASS THE LEAGUE STAR BACK TO ME PLZ. TYPE '/LML $NAME' TO MAKE ME LEADER." The /TLL command automatically sends a tell to whoever is the league leader... so no need to find out who the leader is, right click, or type their name. Fast. Bam! The "type /LML" bit helps out players who, for whoever reason, can't find you in the league list (and there are many). 2. Wait 5 minutes (until right after killing all the bots). 3. /macro "Spam it!" "tell $target, PASS THE STAR TO ME PLEASE" Spam this 6 times (8 will get you banned for 2 min). I realize that the original tell I send is a lot of words. Spamming it will make it look like a wall of meaningless text. For the reading impaired, you need to go more simple. Also you need to tell them who to give the star to, "to me", don't skip that step... yes, I know, but so many players ask... 4. Wait until after Nightstar is dead and then spam it again. 5. If still no response, just give up. Finish out the BAF, but if you're going to do another run... 6. Tell the league to disband after this run, and send you a tell to get invited to the next BAF run. Disband and reform. It's at this point, when players are abandoning the league like rats from a sinking ship that the severely clueless player usually wakes up. They see all the players quitting the league in droves. Their first thought is "What's going on???". It's then that they start checking their chat, find all the messages asking them to pass the star, see your message telling the league to disband... and often they'll send you a tell apologizing. I'll reinvite them at this point if they want to do another run. Otherwise, with no apology, I tend to avoid inviting them. Half the time they're too embarrassed to stick around anyway. Dealing with a clueless player who doesn't read text is kind of the price of leading BAFs. I don't get upset, nor frustrated. I know exactly the steps to take, and what to do if they're unresponsive. This is only for BAFs though. There's not much a single, clueless player can do to make the BAF run fail. At worst, you'll just disband and reform. But for other trials where all players need to be on the same page or the trial will fail... yeah, that can get frustrating. It would be really nice if, one of these days, the devs fixed the bug that makes the star change hands after loading into the BAF. Who knows? Maybe if they tackle that they'll fix the other big bug that can make players wait indefinitely for the green button to pop up if the league is less than 24 peeps. Or the other bug that scrambles the league if it's locked. I bet they're all related...

Thanks guys. Wow. A hard limit. Now I know. M, if it becomes a problem, or if you think it's best, I can use {{bindcommand}} for slash command pages instead and link each command manually one at a time. The IfExists parser function is just more convenient is all. The last thing I want is for it to cause trouble. This group of 105 commands is my first real attempt to grab all the commands that can be used as command line parameters. I'm hoping I have most of them, but the number is likely to increase. Anyway, let me know. And thanks again.

I've created this template: https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Template:Launchparam It seems to work great using it a few times on small pages. However, using it many, many times in a large page seems to break it. For example, https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/List_of_Command_Line_Parameters . If you scroll to near the bottom you'll see "vis_scale". the "vis_scale (Slash Command)" page exists, and yet the template is acting as if it doesn't exist. I suspect I've hit some sort of limit when using templates, substitutions in templates, or the IfExists parameter. Not sure. The template is a duplicate of the {{slashcommand}} template (which has been used over 600 times without issue in the List of Slash Commands page) except I've added the IfExists parameter. I don't know how to fix this or where to go from here. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

There are so many great ideas for the game… ranging from story, to visual, to technical. It’s crazy. I have recently begun to think about what would need to be done, and the amount of work and expertise needed is tremendous. So with limited resources, the devs prioritize. #1 priority are things that hinder gameplay. After that, new power sets. And improving powers. After that, new items for SG bases. And I believe that the Kallisti Warf is currently being worked on to come alive, including contacts and story arcs. It’s just a lot. Keep suggesting things though. Maybe one day it will raise in priority and your post would be there to provide additional depth and ideas. You never know. 😀

Hi, M. Please let us know when we can start editing and adding to the wiki. I'm worried that a "restore" might just wipe out what I just did. BTW, what was the issue you were trying to fix?